Will Intel and USB make fiber optics mainstream? | Deep Tech - CNET News: ""
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Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Report: Apple ready to release new iMacs with Blu-ray
Report: Apple ready to release new iMacs with Blu-ray: "Apple may be ready to introduce a new iMac with an updated design and a Blu-ray optical drive."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
BannerZest 2.0 - Flash presentation software for pro and amateur web designers. (Demo)
BannerZest 2.0 - Flash presentation software for pro and amateur web designers. (Demo): "
BannerZest 2.0
BannerZest is Flash presentation software for professional and amateur web designers. Turn your pictures into a flash slideshow with a few simple clicks and share it on your website. BannerZest doesn't require you to know or even possess Flash!
BannerZest uses the concept of themes, that work like templates. You don't have to spend hours in Flash for a beautiful animation. Our designers have done it for you! Paste your photos, choose the colors, done!
Whether you are using Apple iWeb, RapidWeaver, Dreamweaver or any other tool, BannerZest will let you put your banners online in no time. Uploading your work via FTP or to your .Mac account is fully supported from within BannerZest. Integrating a banner on a page is as simple as pasting a code snippet prepared for you. Social web sites are supported too.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 2.0 release notes not available at the time of this posting
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Flash Player 9.0.45 or later.
DEVELOPER
DOWNLOADS
32132
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MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Next-Generation iMacs Already in Production?
Next-Generation iMacs Already in Production?: "AppleInsider claims that Apple has begun production of the next-generation iMac and may be set to introduce the revamped product line sometime between now and mid-October.
The new all-in-one, dual-core desktops were finalized earlier ..."
MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com
Stealth car brings out crowd to Roseburg dealership
Stealth car brings out crowd to Roseburg dealership: "
The Air Force was in town to show off their newest stealth creation, but they also wanted to help out some veterans at the same time. The Air Force's new stealth Charger is what brought out some spectators.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Brain Scans Reveal What You've Seen
Brain Scans Reveal What You've Seen: "Scientists use brain scans to identify scenes people have seen by checking brain activity patterns against a database of 6 million images.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Superhuman vision may be on the horizon
Superhuman vision may be on the horizon: "Engineers at the University of Washington are manufacturing flexible contact lenses with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights that can achieve a virtual display of the world."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Nils Christie: Empty the Prisons
Nils Christie: Empty the Prisons: "
From the death penalty to 'three strikes' laws, Americans love tough responses to crime—but not necessarily smart ones. Nils Christie has a better idea: Stop treating lawbreakers like criminals.
'I don't like the term crime—it's such a big, fat, imprecise word,' says the renowned University of Oslo criminologist. 'There are only unwanted acts. How we perceive them depends on our relationship with those who carry them out.' If a teenager swipes a wallet, we call it a crime. If he snakes a twenty from his dad, it's a family issue. Locking up the pickpocket only sets him up to learn worse tricks from hardened thugs. Better, Christie says, to treat him like a badly behaved son. Send him to counseling and require that he compensate his victim. Similarly, drug abuse should be considered a matter of public health, not criminal justice. Give addicts treatment instead of incarceration and you'll cure more of them and (bonus!) foster a more humane society. Of course, seriously violent criminals should be locked up, but Christie points out that the justice system does a poor job of determining which ones are so incorrigible that they need to stay behind bars.
Christie's approach may sound implausible in the US, where crime is far more prevalent than in his home of Norway. But our national predilection for punishment has gotten out of hand. The Land of the Free incarcerates more citizens per capita than any other country on Earth, almost half of them for nonviolent offenses. And it's not because of a rise in crime rates—in fact, those have been falling for nearly a decade. Rather, tough sentencing and anti-drug laws have put a growing number of marginal offenders behind bars. Maybe that's why some US officials are starting to think like Christie. California and a few other states now mandate treatment rather than imprisonment for certain drug offenders, and many communities have launched victim-offender mediation programs.
If nothing else, cutting the prison population helps the bottom line. Each inmate costs US taxpayers more than $22,000 a year. And return on the investment stinks: Two out of three prisoners released are arrested again, according to government studies. Now that's a crime.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Stewart Brand: Save the Slums
Stewart Brand: Save the Slums: "
Some people see a squatter city in Nigeria or India and the desperation overwhelms them: rickety shelters, little kids working or begging, filthy water and air. Stewart Brand sees the same places and he's encouraged. The pioneering environmentalist, technology thinker, and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog has written a new manifesto, Whole Earth Discipline, in which he defends genetic engineering, nuclear power, and other longtime nemeses of the green left as good for the planet. Brand also makes a counterintuitive case that the booming slums and squatter cities in and around Mumbai, Nairobi, and Rio de Janeiro are net positives for poor people and the environment. Wired asked him to elaborate.
Wired: What makes squatter cities so important?
Stewart Brand: That's where vast numbers of humans—slum dwellers—are doing urban stuff in new and amazing ways. And hell's bells, there are a billion of them! People are trying desperately to get out of poverty, so there's a lot of creativity; they collaborate in ways that we've completely forgotten how to do in regular cities. And there's a transition: People come in from the countryside, enter the rickshaw economy, and work for almost nothing. But after a while, they move uptown, into the formal economy. The United Nations did extensive field research and flipped from seeing squatter cities as the world's great problem to realizing these slums are actually the world's great solution to poverty.
Wired: Why are they good for the environment?
Brand: Cities draw people away from subsistence farming, which is ecologically devastating, and they defuse the population bomb. In the villages, women spend their time doing agricultural stuff, for no pay, or having lots and lots of kids. When women move to town, it's better to have fewer kids, bear down, and get them some education, some economic opportunity. Women become important, powerful creatures in the slums. They're often the ones running the community-based organizations, and they're considered the most reliable recipients of microfinance loans.
Wired: How can governments help nurture these positives?
Brand: The suffering is great, and crime is rampant. We made the mistake of romanticizing villages, and we don't need to make that mistake again. But the main thing is not to bulldoze the slums. Treat the people as pioneers. Get them some grid electricity, water, sanitation, crime prevention. All that makes a huge difference.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
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