Writing Good English: A talk by William Zinsser to foreign students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | The American Scholar

Writing Good English: A talk by William Zinsser to foreign students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | The American Scholar: "The epidemic I’m most worried about isn’t swine flu. It’s the death of logical thinking."

-

The Amazon.com of pot

The Amazon.com of pot: "A California IT entrepreneur is trying to emulate Amazon.com by creating a central online hub for legitimate marijuana sales."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Led by Bat Boy, 'Weekly World News' Deranges Comics

Led by Bat Boy, 'Weekly World News' Deranges Comics: "The former supermarket tabloid finds a natural second life as a comic book. Recurring characters like Ed Anger, Ph.D. Ape and the defunct weekly newspaper's half-bat, half-human cover creature take center stage in a new series that's crammed with pop-culture ephemera."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Insight

Insight: "The three most common structures in programming are the list, the tree, and the tangle. The list is traversed by iteration, the tree by recursion, and the tangle, which I do not recommend, has never been successfully traversed. Guess which one I'm dealing with today."

Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/

Big Picture: 570-Megapixel, Intergalactic Camera

Big Picture: 570-Megapixel, Intergalactic Camera: "Physicists and astronomers at Fermilab join forces to build a 570-megapixel (and the biggest ever) digital camera to answer one of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos: What is dark energy?"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Killing me softly with your TV screen

Killing me softly with your TV screen: "Researchers in Australia find that watching TV more than four hours a day increases risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 80 percent."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

RCA creating Wi-Fi-powered gadget charger

RCA creating Wi-Fi-powered gadget charger: "RCA shows off an energy-harvesting battery that converts Wi-Fi signals to DC power, which is suitable for charging up cell phones."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Elgato announces EyeTV One tuner

Elgato announces EyeTV One tuner: "Elgato has announced another television tuner for the Mac. The EyeTV One is specifically designed to work with antennas to deliver free, over-the-air HD broadcasts to a computer.




"

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

CES: 3D comes home

CES: 3D comes home: "It's important to underscore that the 3D being shown at CES is not akin to the 3D you'd get with anaglyphic red-and-green glasses folded up into a Cracker Jack box.




"

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

How Google tells you what men and women want

How Google tells you what men and women want: "An analysis of, 'How can I get my boyfriend/girlfriend to...' Internet searches is very amusing. But nothing compared to 'How can I get my wife/husband to...'"

Girlfriends are also very keen to know how to get their boyfriends to spend more time with them, love them, and generally be more romantic and less stinky.

Boyfriends, on the other hand, are most concerned to discover how to get their girlfriends to perform oral sex. This revealing bucket of angst is closely followed by the need to get their girlfriends to sleep with them, lose weight, and trust them. Shaving and forgiveness also make an appearance.

Adium 1.3.9 - Popular instant messenger client, supports multiple services. (Free)

Adium 1.3.9 - Popular instant messenger client, supports multiple services. (Free): "Adium is a fast and free instant messaging client which supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, QQ, Novell Groupwise, SIP/SIMPLE (Text), and Lotus Sametime. Adium supports beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer, and more. Give it a try; you won't look back."

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Arts & Letters Daily (12 Jan 2010)

Arts & Letters Daily (12 Jan 2010): "

Carbon fiber and aluminum are so 2009. The latest in bicycles is the bamboo frame. It makes for a smooth, organic ride with less vibration... more

Teenage peasant girls in the Middle Ages did have occasional religious visions. Few went on to advise kings and lead armies, as did Joan of Arc... more

Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience, we now have sins of leaving water running, lights on, not recycling, or using plastic grocery bags. It's our green religion... more

"

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Prinicipal Photography Begins on "Thor"

Prinicipal Photography Begins on "Thor": "It's official -- Marvel Studios has announced that principal photography on 'Thor' began today. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth, the film is scheduled for a May 6, 2011 release."

CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com/

Vandals damage historic Oregon lighthouse

Vandals damage historic Oregon lighthouse: "

Weekend vandalism damaged a'lighthouse lens'manufactured in Paris, France, and shipped around Cape Horn up to Oregon in the late 19th Century, along with other windows and equipment at the Cape Meares Lighthouse.

"

KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

Toshiba announces Cell TV HDTV | HDTV | Playlist | Macworld

Toshiba announces Cell TV HDTV | HDTV | Playlist | Macworld: "So what does all that processing power mean to the person on the couch? The biggest thing, perhaps, is 2D to 3D conversion. The TV takes everything from 2D gaming and home video, processes it, fills in missing pixels, and turns it into video that looks like 3D.

In terms of resolution, the TV uses its processing power to up-convert all video to 1080p 3D. The TV also connects to the Internet to receive net video sources like VUDU and Netflix; it applies noise canceling technology to that content to clean up the noise and image distortion that can be present in net video.

Toshiba says the Cell TV cranks out far more brightness than any other TV, and feature 512 different zones that separately adjust black and white levels as you watch."

-

Video: Open Source 3-D Printer Turns Designs Into Objects

Video: Open Source 3-D Printer Turns Designs Into Objects: "Wired.com checks out MakerBot's Cupcake CNC 3-D Printer. This open source, $950 device allows the user to design and fabricate small objects of almost any shape."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Review: Breezy 'Simpsons' Special Revels in 20 Yellow Years

Review: Breezy 'Simpsons' Special Revels in 20 Yellow Years: "Director Morgan Spurlock crams a lot of fan love into his one-hour documentary about Homer, Marge and the rest of Springfield's animated citizens. The special, which airs Sunday, takes a fast-paced look at the show's lasting influence."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Blazingly Fast Wireless HD Hits the Mainstream

Blazingly Fast Wireless HD Hits the Mainstream: "A new wireless interface standard called Wireless HD that could get rid of the wires connecting your TV to accessories and offers hi-def video data transfer is going mainstream."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Marvel Sues To Invalidate Kirby Estate Copyright Claims

Marvel Sues To Invalidate Kirby Estate Copyright Claims: "The legal battle over the Jack Kirby estate Marvel copyright claims heated up today as Marvel struck back in court. ROBOT 6 has the details."

CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com/

Bee Colony Collapse May Have Several Causes

Bee Colony Collapse May Have Several Causes: "There's no single answer for why honey bees are getting harder to keep alive — and that's part of the problem.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

"If Monks Had Macs" Available for Free

"If Monks Had Macs" Available for Free: "

It's always sad when something comes to an end, but thanks to its creator, Brian Thomas, the groundbreaking multimedia project 'If Monks Had Macs' that started 21 years ago will live on as a free download.

We've written about 'If Monks Had Macs' in several of our gift issues in the past; rather than attempt yet another explanation of something that seemingly tries to defy all description, I'll bring forward what we wrote in the past.

In 2003, Matt Neuburg described 'If Monks Had Macs' like this: 'I'm not sure whether this counts as software, a game, a multimedia experience, a book, or nostalgia. It's 'If Monks Had Macs,' which started life as a HyperCard stack before I even knew HyperCard existed, turned into a Voyager multimedia CD, and is now available cross-platform, thanks to Runtime Revolution. If Monks (as we like to call it) is impossible to describe. It's a truly visionary hyperlinked collection of books, music, art, games, and activities, plus several applications you can use separately, such as a hyperlinked journal-writer and an ebook text reader that works with Project Gutenberg files and other free online books. It's genuine New Media - a
multi-dimensional, quirky vision from the mind of an eclectic thinker. If you've been wondering (and who hasn't?) what Chesterton's Father Brown, Heart of Darkness, Schubert, Thoreau, and the Kennedy assassination have to do with one another, this is your chance to find out. I remember the earliest If Monks incarnations with fondness, so this new version is on my wish list.'

And I wrote in 2004, 'A word you seldom see applied to software is 'thoughtful,' and in this case, I mean it literally, as in 'full of thought.' But I can think of no better label for Brian Thomas's 'If Monks Had Macs,' an interactive multimedia CD-ROM title that defies prosaic description. It's packed with original texts from the like of Henry David Thoreau and G.K. Chesterton, highly readable essays and critical analyses, a visual exploration of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Tower of Babel painting, a telling of the story behind an underground newsletter called The White Rose from an underground student resistance group in Nazi Germany, and far more. A playful sub-current swirls through everything - there's an illustrated medieval text
adventure game (you're a monk, needless to say) in which you find cards for a solitaire game. A journaling application helps you record your impressions and musings as you meander through the application's many byways. 'If Monks Had Macs' started out life years ago as a HyperCard stack (now converted to Runtime Revolution, supported by a separate ebook reader), and that retro aesthetic now merely adds to the whimsy.'

Brian Thomas isn't just shoveling old software out there; he has worked to remake the Killing Time game (also available as a free download, and it's only about 10 MB), and has added more recent photos and essays to the main project. But as he told me, he's returning to his roots as a photographer, and is leaving shortly for Cambodia, and wanted to make 'If Monks Had Macs' available for free download before he left.

But it's not quite as easy as it seems to distribute a 130 MB disk image, and after some discussion on TidBITS Talk, Brian opted for three disparate methods, all of which are free (to him and to downloaders, which was important), but which all have their limitations as well, outlined below for anyone else who is thinking about distributing a very large file to the public. All three download methods are linked from Brian's Web site.

• The first method uses a free Dropbox account, which will likely work well over time, but Dropbox temporarily suspends downloads from accounts that use unusual amounts of bandwidth, and for the moment, the Dropbox links just won't work.



• The second method uses the file distribution service RapidShare, which offers free downloads, but only when their servers are sufficiently available. When I tried to download via RapidShare, I was told their servers were overloaded and was encouraged to pay for a premium account.



• The third method relies on the most obvious approach - shared bandwidth via BitTorrent - and it worked well for downloading the 130 MB disk image. The problem with BitTorrent in the long term is that someone has to continue to seed (make the file available for retrieval) forever. Plus, downloading via BitTorrent requires a BitTorrent client like Transmission, so it's a bit more of a fuss for users. But if BitTorrent absorbs the bandwidth spike in the next few days and weeks, the other methods should work from then on.



• There is one other approach, which is that if you can get your order in by 11 January 2010, Brian will ship you an 'If Monks Had Macs' CD for only $10. He really is leaving the country, so I imagine he'll shut down the online order once he can no longer fulfill CDs.

I would strongly encourage people to download a copy of 'If Monks Had Macs' via BitTorrent soon, purely to make sure you have a copy while it's definitely still available. And, if you have plenty of bandwidth, leave your copy of Transmission running to seed the file to other people, which will lighten the load for everyone.

Kudos to Brian Thomas for refusing to let 'If Monks Had Macs' simply fade away, and we wish him the best of luck.

'

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'

Copyright © 2010 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

"

TidBITS - http://www.tidbits.com/

Where did San Francisco Bay's sea lions go? Try the Oregon Coast

Where did San Francisco Bay's sea lions go? Try the Oregon Coast: "

Hundreds of sea lions that abruptly blew out of San Francisco Bay's Pier 39 last Thanksgiving have apparently found a new home at another tourist attraction — 500 miles north on the Oregon coast.

"

KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

CES: New pico projectors debut, aim for prime time

CES: New pico projectors debut, aim for prime time: "New pico projectors are making their entrance at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, from Microvision, 3M and others.




"

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

'He was a welcome member of this community. You are not'

'He was a welcome member of this community. You are not': "

Judge Gregory Foote had harsh words for the two Eugene men convicted of beating Herbert Bishop, a homeless man, to death last May. 'Mr. Bishop was a human being. He had worth. People cared about him. He had friends,' said Foote. 'He was a welcome member of this community. You are not, at least not now.'

"

KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

Show only exact duplicate tracks in iTunes

Show only exact duplicate tracks in iTunes: "In iTunes, a very useful feature is the File » Show Duplicates menu item. As expected by its name, you can use this feature to help weed out duplicates from your iTunes library. However, many people (myself included) have different versions of songs, remixes and such, which will show up as duplicates when using this feature.



The solution is to hold down the option key prior to selecting this menu item. When you do, Show Duplicates changes to Show Exact Duplicates. In this mode, iTunes shows only true duplicates, and not remixes or alternate versions.











"

Mac OS X Hints - http://www.macosxhints.com

Sony Pushes 3-D to Playstation 3, TVs, Introduces 'Bloggie'

Sony Pushes 3-D to Playstation 3, TVs, Introduces 'Bloggie': "Highlights from Sony's latest announcements at CES 2010 include 3-D for your Playstation 3, a new line of 3-D Bravia LCD TV's, partnerships with Discovery Channel and ESPN for 3-D content.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

A look inside Oregon's first marijuana cafe

A look inside Oregon's first marijuana cafe: "

The Cannabis Cafe opened on Nov. 13 at 4:20 p.m., Oregon’s first marijuana cafe. No marijuana is sold at the establishment, but patients can bring their own or sample buds donated by growers. The cafe does not serve alcohol.

"

KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

Young men get 25 years in prison for beating homeless man to death

Young men get 25 years in prison for beating homeless man to death: "

The two young men who beat a'homeless man to death and left his bloody body in a city park near a children's playground last spring will spend 25 years in prison for the crime.

"

KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

Legal marijuana: a cure for state budget woes?

Legal marijuana: a cure for state budget woes?: "

Legalizing marijuana for adults could help plug holes in the state budget, supporters of legalized marijuana said Wednesday, but opponents warned of hidden costs.

"

KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

New Year's resolution: Have more sex - CNN.com

New Year's resolution: Have more sex - CNN.com: "You can't help but say, 'Holy God! Sexual activity is a very important thing to do. Human beings were really meant to do this.' "

Toshiba Crams Supercomputer Guts Into 3-D, Web TV | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Toshiba Crams Supercomputer Guts Into 3-D, Web TV | Gadget Lab | Wired.com: "Powered by LED (KIRA2) backlighting, the 55- or 65-inch Cell TV features multiple eight-core 3.2-GHz processors. It’s 10 times faster than standard desktop computers and will have 143 times the processing power of today’s televisions.

The Cell TV includes a converter to make everything that’s normally 2-D on your screen — football games, videogames, Blu-ray movies and so on — pop out in 3-D when viewed through active shutter glasses.

It also features a video camera, microphone and software for video conferencing over an internet connection. Also, the Cell TV will have a software menu called Net TV Channels to download streaming content from Netflix, Vudu and other web-based video services. On top of that, the TV uses a technology called Net Super Resolution+ to reduce compression artifacts seen in web video content."

Netflix, Warner Bros., rejigger online movie renting

Netflix, Warner Bros., rejigger online movie renting: "Netflix has agreed not to rent new DVD and Blu-Ray titles for 28 days after they are released. In exchange, Netflix gets more streaming content and that's the company's future."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

First dedicated 3D networks coming to TV

First dedicated 3D networks coming to TV: "A joint venture between Discovery, Sony, and Imax will bring 3D to your home in 2011. And a new network from ESPN will deliver the technology later this year."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Nexus One Phone - Web meets phone.

Nexus One Phone - Web meets phone.

Google Nexus One | Wired.com Product Reviews

Google Nexus One | Wired.com Product Reviews: ""

-

Google unveils Nexus One | Android Atlas - CNET Blogs

Google unveils Nexus One | Android Atlas - CNET Blogs: "As described by Erick Tseng, Google's senior product manager for the Nexus One project, the feature set includes everything you'd expect from an Android phone and adds a couple of unique goodies. Inside you'll find a GPS with Google Maps and turn-by-turn navigation, an accelerometer, a virtual keyboard, a light sensor for adjusting the display to save battery power, a proximity sensor, a compass, a 5-megapixel camera with a LED flash, Wi-Fi, a new media gallery interface with access to Picassa and YouTube, Facebook access, and stereo Bluetooth. Tethering and multitouch are not yet supported and app storage will be limited to the 512MB of internal memory."

-

A Few Thoughts on the Nexus One

A Few Thoughts on the Nexus One: "

There will be many posts focusing on the look, feel, and features of the Nexus One, so I'm going to focus on what Android's latest incarnation says about the competitive landscape - what I've elsewhere called the war for the web. Android vs. iPhone is one important front in that 'war.'

News from the front: a possible turning point for Android. I've been a huge iPhone fan, but after using the Nexus One for a few weeks, I find so much to like that I'm close to the point where Android might be my first choice. While I may yet go back to my iPhone, I'm conflicted.

The key to the turning point is not how slick the phone is - even though it's thin, fast, bright, and beautiful, with amazing sensor-based capabilities including noise-canceling headphones, automated brightness adjustment based on external light levels, voice-activated search, navigation and data-entry, different 'home' screens based on whether it's in your pocket or sitting in car-dock. Nor is it the fact that you can buy unlocked phones without any plan, or that you will soon be able to choose plans from Verizon and Vodaphone as well as T-Mobile. The real turning point is Google's commitment to making the Nexus One a web-native device. As Google VP of Product Management Mario Queiroz said in today's press conference, a nexus is a place where multiple worlds meet. 'The Nexus One is where the phone meets the web.' It's a connected device in a way that is more fundamental than any previous phone.

The biggest pluses of the Nexus One are all around the simplicity and completeness of the cloud integration:

• The Android Market rocks. It's a 'one click' experience compared to the iPhone App Store. Find the app, add it directly to the phone. No separate syncing step. And there's more than enough choice there, with more apps being added every day. I found myself having much more fun exploring and adding new apps than I ever had on the iPhone. Payment is also easy - I have a feeling that the Android Market is going to be a major driver for Google Checkout, growing its base and making it a real contender as a first class internet payment system. Not to mention that you buy the phone itself online using Google Checkout.
  
  

  
  
  I'm delighted by the useful security warnings (now, that's unusual!) that show what system features each app you download will have access to. I also love that the Market shows you how many times the app has been installed, so you can immediately see how popular it is.
  
  

• Gmail is so good on the phone that I can, for the first time, imagine being totally without my laptop.
  
  

• No need to sync address book and calendar. Everything's always up to date.
  
  
• Multi-tasking makes the phone feel much more like a real computer.
  
  

• Maps and turn by turn navigation are great, although the speaking voice of the turn by turn is just awful.
  
  
• 
  
  In Android 2.1, Google has speech-enabled every text field on the phone, not just search and navigation. Frankly, speech recognition still doesn't work as well as I would hope, but as I've written previously, when speech recognition isn't happening on the device, but in the cloud, it gets better the more people use it.
  
  

• 
  
  Google Goggles is still a bit rough, but really promising. I understand why it's not pre-loaded on the phone, but think it has real promise as a must-have app, and one that plays to Google's strengths. I believe that image recognition and speech recognition are key to future UI improvements in mobile devices, and I applaud Google's long term commitment to these areas, even though they aren't yet fully baked. And the awe factor when you see someone point a camera at you and have the app say 'That's Tim O'Reilly' tells you just how much more a device can do when it is backed by big data and powerful algorithms running on a cloud platform. (Google has kept face recognition out of the production version of Goggles, but I had a full version demoed to me a few months ago, and it was truly a taste of the future.) Augmented reality is coming to the iPhone as well (Layar, the Yelp Monocle, and ShopSavvy being only a few examples), but this is Google's home turf.
  
  

The biggest minuses (as might be expected) are around UI:

• The iPhone was always intuitive for me. The gPhone is definitely a learning experience. But the more familiar I get with it, the happier I am, unlike some devices where you never get over the hurdle, and never feel comfortable or effective.
  
  

• Visual Voicemail is a killer app on the iPhone. Going back to having to dial a number to hear voicemail just seems so wrong. I'm assuming that this is our wonderful patent system at work, as otherwise, it's hard to imagine that Google wouldn't be copying this feature.
  
  

• It's hard to make a single-touch UI that's as simple and useful as a multi-touch UI. I know multi-touch is coming for Android, but not having it now is a big miss. I love the experience of zooming on the iPhone with a pinch. What's more, the sensitivity of the touch screen on the Nexus One leaves a lot to be desired. Dragging seems to work fine, but some of the button presses aren't recognized unless you press really hard.
  
  

• I really miss access to my iTunes music collection, which is also where I listen to audiobooks from audible.com. That being said, this omission pushes me back in the direction of cloud music apps like Last.FM and Pandora, though I'm wishing that Rhapsody was available, since I'm already a subscriber via my Sonos home music system. Google has added its own built-in music app, but it has a limited selection, and what's worse, pre-empts the controls on the headset. At least right now, they aren't available to other music applications - pressing the pause button while in Last.FM just starts a competing stream from the Google music app. Unless Google is REALLY serious about getting into the music business, they should give up on their own app and work with third parties to fill this hole.
  
  

• 
  
  Google hasn't done as good a job as I would have expected of integrating photos and videos with Picasa and YouTube. While Google claims one-click YouTube upload, it wasn't immediately obvious to me. In any event, there's a potential liability in Google's tie to its own services. For example, I'd love to be able to auto-upload my photos to Flickr rather than Picasa - it will be interesting to see if Google's definition of open extends to the choice of competing cloud services, or if they will use the device to tie people ever more closely to their own services.
  
  

• The lack of some simple features, like the ability to take screenshots, is also annoying. Heck, even to install third-party screenshot apps, you need to root your phone.
  
  

Overall, the phone is good enough that it's conceivable in a way that it wasn't a few months ago that we'll see a replay of Apple's experience in the PC market twenty-five years ago, in which Apple's fit and finish was unquestionably superior, but a commodity platform that was 'good enough' and available to the entire industry ended up taking the lead.

(Henry Blodget makes this case in Hey, Apple, Wake Up -- It's Happening Again. On the other hand, Mark Sigal raises a different historical analogy, Novell vs. Microsoft, asking whether Google's release of its own anointed phone might end up blunting adoption by other vendors, while Google takes the eye of its core business. A lot depends on whether Google holds back anything from the platform available to others. At today's press conference, Google emphasized the open platform aspect of Android, so they are trying to address that fear. The model seems to be to work with individual partners to push the ball forward, but to return those innovations to the pool available to all partners.)

Overall, though, it seems to me that Google's experience in delivering cloud-based data-driven applications is aligned with long-term trends in a way that Apple's device-bound heritage is not. Apple is playing catch-up in cloud infrastructure, building its own location services, for instance, but iTunes and the App Store excepted, Apple's cloud experience is limited, especially in the area of algorithmically driven applications, which I believe is so central to the future of computing. Meanwhile, Google has so many data assets, and so much experience in algorithmic applications, that it may be difficult for Apple to compete in the long term.

There's also the matter of cloud-native 'killer apps.' Apple's email, calendar, and address book show their PC-era roots. They live on the PC and must be synced to the phone. Google's web-native equivalents are always up to date, with syncing happening in real time.

In Apple's favor: software and design patents, which hold the competition at bay in a way that they didn't in the 1980s. Also in Apple's favor, its own killer apps, like iTunes, which is still the gold standard in music, but also the hub for podcasts, audiobooks, and ebooks. Audiobooks and ebooks might make it into the Android Market, but it's hard to imagine the Market becoming the same kind of content hub that iTunes has become.

Also in Apple's favor: Google must make some of its key assets available on the iPhone or cede the real estate to competitors. It would be a major blow, for example, if Bing search were the default on the iPhone instead of Google. It's easy to imagine an Apple-Microsoft alliance in areas like search, location services, speech recognition, image recognition, and other cutting edge areas that will be a key part of Google's competitive advantage in the future.

Meanwhile, there are key third party apps that can make or break either platform - perhaps not quite as essential as in the days when Adobe's commitment to the Mac before Windows helped give Apple an insuperable lead in the design market, but still significant.

Google needs to aggressively map out a partner ecosystem in areas like music, ebooks, and the like, to make sure that they have a compelling offering to match what's already available on the iPhone.

Meanwhile, Apple needs to either beef up its capability in the kinds of data-backed applications, or partner aggressively with companies with more expertise than they currently have. They also need to re-factor their core applications like iPhoto and iMovie to make them web-native, turning them into a base for collective intelligence. Picasa and iPhoto both sport image recognition, but Apple has to train its algorithms on sample data sets, while Google gets to train Picasa on billions of user images. As Peter Norvig, Google's chief scientist, once said to me, 'We don't have better algorithms. We just have more data.' Collective intelligence is the secret sauce of Web 2.0, and the future of all computing, and by locking user data into individual devices, Apple cuts itself off from this future. Rather than having MobileMe as a separate revenue add-on, Apple needs to make all of its applications learn from their users.

What we see then is a collision of paradigms, perhaps as profound as the transition between the character-based era of computing and the GUI based era of the Mac and Windows.

We're in for an interesting ride.

"

O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

Hubble Finds Oldest, Farthest Galaxies Ever Seen

Hubble Finds Oldest, Farthest Galaxies Ever Seen: "The Hubble Space Telescope has detected galaxies that are 13.2 billion light-years from Earth, formed just 700 million years after the Big Bang. They are the oldest galaxies ever found and the farthest away from us."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

DIY Jet Almost Ready to Fly

DIY Jet Almost Ready to Fly: "Sixty grand and some skills with a wrench will put a plane capable of 240 mph in your garage."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

'Kama Sutra' most pirated e-book of 2009

'Kama Sutra' most pirated e-book of 2009: "The list of 2009's most pirated e-books reveals that those who downloaded illegally are people with rather narrow minds and broad frustrations."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Arts & Letters Daily (05 Jan 2010)

Arts & Letters Daily (05 Jan 2010): "

An extinct race of humans found in Africa had big eyes, child-like faces, and a high IQ - genius ancestors... more Maybe, but not everyone is buying it.

Facebook, we rather easily forget, needs to build a profit with our 'friendships.' Jaron Lanier, barefoot guru of the web, is on the case... more

Just-so stories: unscientific yarn-spinning, mere guessing? Or a part of imaginative hypothesis building in science? David Barash explores a question too-long ignored... more

"

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Elusive Supermassive Black Hole Mergers Finally Found

Elusive Supermassive Black Hole Mergers Finally Found: "Astronomers have found 33 pairs of supermassive black holes dancing around each other in the process of merging into one, even bigger black hole. The absence of these observations had been a problem for theories about how galaxies grow."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Understanding Windows 7's 'GodMode'

Understanding Windows 7's 'GodMode': "Enthusiasts are buzzing over a trick that lets users get access to all of the operating system's controls in one folder."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Accessory turns iPhone into the mother of all remotes

Accessory turns iPhone into the mother of all remotes: "A Florida-based company has announced a hardware add-on that turns any iPhone or iPod Touch into a universal remote for your home entertainment devices."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

L5 Remote turns Apple iPhone and iPod touch into universal remote controls

L5 Remote turns Apple iPhone and iPod touch into universal remote controls: "L5 Technology today introduced a accessory and free app that turn any iPhone or iPod touch into a universal remote control..."

MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

Major Apple product announcement set for January 27

Major Apple product announcement set for January 27: "So, that rumored Apple event everyone has been jawing about these past few weeks? It's on and it's going to be a big deal...on a Wednesday."

CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/

Arts & Letters Daily (04 Jan 2010)

Arts & Letters Daily (04 Jan 2010): "Michel de Montaigne hated the cruelty of religion: 'It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account'... more"

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

The 30 Most Important Comics of the Decade, part 1 | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

The 30 Most Important Comics of the Decade, part 1 | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment: ""

-

Manage OS X's downloaded file warning system

Manage OS X's downloaded file warning system: "The first time you launch a downloaded application in OS X, the system will warn you that the file was downloaded, and ask if you're sure you want to open it. This hint explains how to remove that warning from files you've already downloaded, and optionally, from all future downloads."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Dropbox 0.7.97 - Online synchronization tool with Finder integration; free 2 GB account (Free)

Dropbox 0.7.97 - Online synchronization tool with Finder integration; free 2 GB account (Free): "

Dropbox 0.7.97

Dropbox is an application that creates a special Finder folder that automatically syncs online and between your computers. It allows you to both backup files and keep them up-to-date between systems.

The Dropbox application is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. A video on the site explains more.

WHAT'S NEW

Version 0.7.97:

• Flicker free plan selection when you first link a host
  
• Fix for tiny race condition when renaming folders on Mac
  
• Potential fix to some cases where Mac wouldn't detect local changes made to your Dropbox

REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

PRICE

Free

DEVELOPER

Dropbox

DOWNLOADS

61095

DOWNLOAD NOW (25.9'MB)

More information

"

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Arts & Letters Daily (31 Dec 2009)

Arts & Letters Daily (31 Dec 2009): "The sex life of Grace Kelly is like the home life of the Incas: you can investigate it in depth and muse upon it at length, but never hope to understand it... more

Raymond Chandler wrote that his detective Philip Marlowe has 'as much social conscience as a horse. He has a personal conscience, which is an entirely different matter'... more

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

MARVEL's Shareholders Approve DISNEY Merger

MARVEL's Shareholders Approve DISNEY Merger: "It's finally official, Marvel is being bought by Disney for money to the tune of $4.3 billion"

Newsarama.com - Comics - http://www.newsarama.com

Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke

Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke: "An aerospace engineer leads a cadre of industry outsiders dedicated to sparking a revival of thorium. They say it's a supersafe, clean and massively abundant fuel that can be the energy of the future."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Study: Rumors of Written-Word Death Greatly Exaggerated

Study: Rumors of Written-Word Death Greatly Exaggerated: "The written word is under a prolonged technological siege, according to conventional wisdom. But new research shows that Americans read more than they did in 1980."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Convert Your Address to Latitude and Longitude

Convert Your Address to Latitude and Longitude: "Your address is helpful to the postman. But if you know your latitude and longitude, you'll enjoy more-accurate maps and get more precise directions from your GPS."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

People's Processor: Embrace China's Homegrown Computer Chips

People's Processor: Embrace China's Homegrown Computer Chips: "China's creating a computer chip that can drive anything from an industrial robot to a supercomputer is succeeding. It's going to have a profound impact on computers everywhere."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Six uses for a dead iPod

Six uses for a dead iPod: "Nothing lasts forever, and iPods are no exception. But in many cases, you can still use a dead iPod in some way."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

CNBC to air 'Welcome to Macintosh' documentary

CNBC to air 'Welcome to Macintosh' documentary: "Woz-heads and Jobs-worshippers alike will want to set their DVRs for the January 4th showing of the film, which chronicles Apple's history."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Nokia Increases Scope of Patent Complaints to Include 'Virtually All' Apple Products

Nokia Increases Scope of Patent Complaints to Include 'Virtually All' Apple Products: "The legal battle between Nokia and Apple has been ratcheted up another notch today with Nokia's announcement that it has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging infringement of Nokia-held patents by 'virtually al..."

MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com

Arts & Letters Daily (29 Dec 2009)

Funny, I was just thinking the exact same thing the other day - what luck!

Arts & Letters Daily (29 Dec 2009): "Captain Sullenberger's landing in the Hudson River was a miraculous application of skill in a situation that offered the best possible luck... more"

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Four short links: 28 December 2009

Four short links: 28 December 2009: "100 Incredible Lectures from the World's Top Scientists -- it's an astounding collection for everyone to have access to. I'm cheekily delighted by the thought that TED talks will become the next generation's equivalent of the cheesy 16mm educational film: 'oh no, not another famous person giving a 20 minute presentation on a life-changing approach to something! It's as naff as Spongebob and that silly multicolour Google logo!'
"

O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

Create a simple time-lapse movie

Create a simple time-lapse movie: "You can create a time-lapse movie with your camera, iPhone, or web cam. Time-lapse movies can give us a fresh perspective by speeding up slow-moving action and compressing hours, days, and months into seconds and minutes."

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Arts & Letters Daily (28 Dec 2009)

You decide: Which story did I read?

Arts & Letters Daily (28 Dec 2009):

The Peter Principle appeals to the cynic in all of us. It is also quite possibly true, if academic studies can be trusted. It explains your boss... more

Opera's styles come and go, but its core of music, text, drama, and spectacle is still there. Opera is about pleasure and power... more

Thomas Jefferson opposed ball games, but the wise Abe Lincoln had a baseball diamond built behind the White House and joined his sons in playing ball... more

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Wired’s 20 Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Wired’s 20 Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Apple shares hit new all-time high

Apple shares hit new all-time high: "Apple Inc. shares reached their all-time high on Thursday as excitement builds over the expected release of its tablet..."

MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

Researchers Create First Functional Molecular Transistor

Researchers Create First Functional Molecular Transistor: "Nearly 62 years after researchers at Bell Labs demonstrated the first silicon transistor, scientists say they have created a functional molecular transistor that could help computing move to the next level."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Who's the Best Batman of All Time?

Who's the Best Batman of All Time?: "William Baldwin will be the new voice of Batman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an animated film due out next year. We rank historic Caped Crusaders from best to worst.

Kevin Conroy rules.

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock — Faithful or Flawed?

Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock — Faithful or Flawed?: "Sherlock Holmes experts dissect the surprisingly studly portrayal of the detective in Guy Ritchie's new action flick."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes

Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes: "It's not just drones' video feeds that can be tapped into -- the U.S. military's primary video-surveillance system is also vulnerable to electronic interception. Militants can see through the eyes of all kinds of combat aircraft."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

OpenID: Over 1 Billion (Potentially) Served

OpenID: Over 1 Billion (Potentially) Served: "Thanks to widespread adoption by major players like Yahoo and Google, over 1 billion users now have access to OpenID. Too bad only a fraction of them know what it is and how to take advantage of it."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade

The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade: "

With only a few weeks left until we close out the 'naughts and move into the teens, it's almost obligatory to take a look back at the best and not-so-best of the last decade. With that in mind, I polled the O'Reilly editors, authors, Friends, and a number of industry movers and shakers to gather nominations. I then tossed them in the trash and made up my own compiled them together and looked for trends and common threads. So here then, in no particular order, are the best and the worst that the decade had to offer.

The Best

AJAX - It's hard to remember what life was like before Asynchronous Java and XML came along, so I'll prod your memory. It was boring. Web 1.0 consisted of a lot of static web pages, where every mouse click was a round trip to the web server. If you wanted rich content, you had to embed a Java servlet in the page, and pray that the client browser supported it.

Without the advent of AJAX, we wouldn't have Web 2.0, GMail, or most of the other cloud-based web applications. Flash is still popular, but especially with HTML 5 on the way, even functionality that formerly required a RIA like Flash or Silverlight can now be accomplished with AJAX.

Twitter - When they first started, blogs were just what they said, web logs. In other words, a journal of interesting web sites that the author had encountered. These days, blogs are more like platforms for rants, opinions, essays, and anything else on the writer's mind. Then along came Twitter. Sure, people like to find out what J-Lo had for dinner, but the real power of the 140 character dynamo is that it has brought about a resurgence of real web logging. The most useful tweets consist of a Tiny URL and a little bit of context. Combine that with the use of Twitter to send out real time notices about everything from breaking news to the current specials at the corner restaurant, and it's easy to see why Twitter has become a dominant player.

Ubiquitous WiFi: I want you to imagine you're on the road in the mid-90s. You get to your hotel room, and plop your laptop on the table. Then you get out your handy RJ-11 cord, and check to see if the hotel phone has a data jack (most didn't), or if you'll have to unplug the phone entirely. Then you'd look up the local number for your ISP, and have your laptop dial it, so you could suck down your e-mail at an anemic 56K.

Now, of course, WiFi is everywhere. You may end up having to pay for it, but fast Internet connectivity is available everywhere from your local McDonalds to your hotel room to an airport terminal. Of course, this is not without its downsides, since unsecured WiFi access points have led to all sorts of security headaches, and using an open access point is a risky proposition unless your antivirus software is up to date, but on the whole, ubiquitous WiFi has made the world a much more connected place.

Phones Get Smarter: In the late 90s, we started to see the first personal digital assistants emerge, but this has been the decade when the PDA and the cell phone got married and had a baby called the smartphone. Palm got the ball rolling with the Treos about the same time that Windows Mobile started appearing on phones, and RIM's Blackberry put functional phones in the hands of business, but it was Apple that took the ball and ran for the touchdown with the iPhone. You can argue if the droid is better than the 3GS or the Pre, but the original iPhone was the game-changer that showed what a smartphone really could do, including the business model of the App Store,

The next convergence is likely to be with Netbooks, as more and more of the mini-laptops come with 3G service integrated in them, and VoIP services such as Skype continue to eat into both landline and cellular business.

The Maker Culture: There's always been a DIY underground, covering everything from Ham radio to photography to model railroading. But the level of cool has taken a noticeable uptick this decade, as cheap digital technology has given DIY a kick in the pants. The Arduino lets anyone embed control capabilities into just about anything you can imagine, amateur PCB board fabrication has gone from a messy kitchen sink operation to a click-and-upload-your-design purchase, and the 3D printer is turning the Star Trek replicator into a reality.

Manufacturers cringe in fear as enterprising geeks dig out their screwdrivers. The conventional wisdom was that as electronics got more complex, the 'no user serviceable parts' mentality would spell the end of consumer experimentation. But instead, the fact that everything is turning into a computer meant that you could take a device meant for one thing, and reprogram it to do something else. Don't like your digital camera's software? Install your own! Turn your DVR into a Linux server.

Meanwhile, shows like Mythbusters and events like Maker Faire have shown that hacking hardware can grab the public's interest, especially if there are explosions involved.

Open Source Goes Mainstream: Quick! Name 5 open source pieces of software you might have had on your computer in 1999. Don't worry I'll wait...

How about today? Firefox is an easy candidate, as are Open Office, Chrome, Audacity, Eclipse (if you're a developer), Blender, VLC, and many others. Many netbooks now ship with Linux as the underlying OS. Open Source has gone from a rebel movement to part of the establishment, and when you combine increasing end user adoption with the massive amounts of FLOSS you find on the server side, it can be argued that it is the 800 pound Gorilla now.

As Gandhi said, 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' When even Microsoft is releasing Open Source code, you know that you're somewhere between the fight and win stages.

Bountiful Resources: 56K modems, 20MB hard drives, 640K of RAM, 2 MHz processors. You don't have to go far back in time for all of these to represent the state of the art. Now, of course, you would have more than that in a good toaster...

Moore's Law continues to drive technology innovation at a breakneck pace, and it seems that related technologies like storage capacity and bandwidth are trying to follow the same curve. Consider that AT&T users gripe about the iPhone's 5GB/month bandwidth cap, a limit that would have taken 10 solid days of transferring to achieve with a dialup connection.

My iPhone has 3,200 times the storage of the first hard drive I ever owned, and the graphics card on my Mac Pro has 16,000 times the memory of my first computer. We can now do amazing things in the palm of our hands, things that would have seemed like science fiction in 1999.

The Worst

SOAP: The software industry has been trying to solve the problem of making different pieces of software talk to each other since the first time there were two programs on a network, and they still haven't gotten it right. RPC, CORBA, EJB, and now SOAP now litter the graveyard of failed protocol stacks.

SOAP was a particularly egregious failure, because it was sold so heavily as the final solution to the interoperatibility problem. The catch, of course, was that no two vendors implemented the stack quite the same way, with the result that getting a .NET SOAP client to talk to a Java server could be a nightmare. Add in poorly spec'd out components such as web service security, and SOAP became useless in many cases. And the WSDL files that define SOAP endpoints are unreadable and impossible to generate by hand (well, not impossible, but unpleasant in the extreme.)

Is it any wonder that SOAP drove many developers into the waiting arms of more useable data exchange formats such as JSON?

Intellectual Property Wars: How much wasted energy has been spent this decade by one group of people trying to keep another group from doing something with their intellectual property, or property they claim was theirs? DMCA takedowns, Sony's Rootkit debacle, the RIAA suing grandmothers, SCO, patent trolls, 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0, Kindles erasing books, deep packet inspection, Three Strikes laws, the list goes on and on and on...

At the end of the day, the movie industry just had their best year ever, Lady Gaga seems to be doing just fine and Miley Cyrus isn't going hungry, and even the big players in the industry are getting fed up sufficiently with the Trolls to want patent reform. The iTunes store is selling a boatload of music, in spite of abandoning DRM, so clearly people will continue to pay for music, even if they can copy it from a friend.

Unfortunately, neither the RIAA nor the MPAA is going gently into that good night. If anything, the pressure to create onerous legislation has increased in the past year. Whether this is a last gasp or a retrenchment will only be answered in time.

The Cult of Scrum: If Agile is the teachings of Jesus, Scrum is every abuse ever perpetrated in his name. In many ways, Scrum as practiced in most companies today is the antithesis of Agile, a heavy, dogmatic methodology that blindly follows a checklist of 'best practices' that some consultant convinced the management to follow.

Endless retrospectives and sprint planning sessions don't mean squat if the stakeholders never attend them, and too many allegedly Agile projects end up looking a lot like Waterfall projects in the end. If companies won't really buy into the idea that you can't control all three variables at once, calling your process Agile won't do anything but drive your engineers nuts.

The Workplace Becomes Ubiquitous: What's the first thing you do when you get home at night? Check your work email? Or maybe you got a call before you even got home. The dark side of all that bandwidth and mobile technology we enjoy today is that you can never truly escape being available, at least until the last bar drops off your phone (or you shut the darn thing off!)

The line between the workplace and the rest of your life is rapidly disappearing. When you add in overseas outsourcing, you may find yourself responding to an email at 11 at night from your team in Bangalore. Work and leisure is blurring together into a gray mélange of existence. 'Do you live to work, or work to live,' is becoming a meaningless question, because there's no difference.

"

O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

EyeTV Live3G: Free web app streams live TV over 3G to your iPhone

EyeTV Live3G: Free web app streams live TV over 3G to your iPhone: "With Elgato’s new EyeTV Live3G web app, you can watch live TV and EyeTV recordings anywhere..."

MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach

Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach: "In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military depends on an array of drones to snoop on and stalk insurgents. Now it looks as if insurgents are tapping into those same drones' broadcasts, to see what the flying robot spies see. It's potentially one of the most serious military security breaches in years."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Archaeologists lift granite pylon from Cleopatra's sunken palace complex

Archaeologists lift granite pylon from Cleopatra's sunken palace complex: "Nine-ton pylon was part of the entrance to Temple of Isis, in a palace complex submerged in Alexandria harbor"

Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/

MIT unveils new 'smart' bike wheel | Cutting Edge - CNET News

MIT unveils new 'smart' bike wheel | Cutting Edge - CNET News: "Any existing bike can be retrofitted with the wheel. In fact, the MIT team sees it as a plug-and play-device, one that any bike owner should be able to easily install as a back wheel."

Get the Most Out of Google Voice

Get the Most Out of Google Voice: "If you're one of the lucky ones with a Google Voice number, you know it's much more than just another voicemail inbox. Learn some tricks to unlock the free voice service's hidden features."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Colorado's Green Rush: Medical marijuana - CNN.com

Colorado's Green Rush: Medical marijuana - CNN.com

Dropbox 0.7.79 - Online synchronization tool with Finder integration; free 2GB account. (Free)

Dropbox 0.7.79 - Online synchronization tool with Finder integration; free 2GB account. (Free): "

Dropbox 0.7.79

Dropbox is an application that creates a special Finder folder that automatically syncs online and between your computers. It allows you to both backup files and keep them up-to-date between systems.

The Dropbox application is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. A video on the site explains more.

WHAT'S NEW

Version 0.7.79:

• Many performance improvements
  
• Many memory improvements
  
• Many stability fixes
  
• Toolbar buttons added to Finder on OS X
  
• LAN sync

REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

PRICE

Free

DEVELOPER

Dropbox

DOWNLOADS

50548

DOWNLOAD NOW (25.9'MB)

More information

"

MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Essay - Is Technology Dumbing Down Japanese? - NYTimes.com

Essay - Is Technology Dumbing Down Japanese? - NYTimes.com

The Bauhaus restored by Michael J. Lewis - The New Criterion

The Bauhaus restored by Michael J. Lewis - The New Criterion

Make a Podcast, Become Internet-Famous

Make a Podcast, Become Internet-Famous: "Make your voice heard by creating a podcast. All you need is a microphone, some lightweight studio software, and something to say."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Set Up a Webcam for Chats, Streams and YouTube Videos

Set Up a Webcam for Chats, Streams and YouTube Videos: "Want to become a YouTube star? Or maybe just video chat with friends across the globe? You'll need to learn how to set up a webcam and a microphone on your computer. Follow these steps and you can start chronicling your life for all to see.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

How the iPhone Could Reboot Education

How the iPhone Could Reboot Education: "Brian X. Chen (wired.com) reports that Abilene Christian University has just finished the first year of a pilot program in which 1,000 freshman students each received a free iPhone or iPod touch to explore how the always-connected devices ’might revolutionize the classroom experience with a dash of digital interactivity.’ Says Bill Rankin, a professor who helped plan the initiative: ‘I think this is the next platform for education.’"

Apple Hot News - http://www.apple.com/hotnews/

Wireless Brain-to-Computer Connection Synthesizes Speech

Wireless Brain-to-Computer Connection Synthesizes Speech: "For the first time, a brain-computer interface has wirelessly translated brain waves into sounds. It's a major step toward mobile, wireless systems that can help paralyzed people express themselves."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Mediterranean Sea Saved by Monumental Flood | Wired Science | Wired.com

Mediterranean Sea Saved by Monumental Flood | Wired Science | Wired.com: ""

-

Macworld Editors' Choice Awards: Software

Macworld Editors' Choice Awards: Software: "Of the hundreds of Mac apps we saw in the past year, these 13 were our favorites.




"

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

What is Google Voice?

What is Google Voice?: "You've probably heard about Google's online phone service. But do you really know what it is, how it works, and why you might want to consider it? Chris Pepper has some answers.




"

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

iTunes compilations: what holds them together?

iTunes compilations: what holds them together?: "The Compilations tag and functionality in iTunes, the iPod, and the iPhone can be confusing. Here's how it all breaks down.




"

Macworld - http://www.macworld.com

Block Web Ads Across Your Entire Network

Block Web Ads Across Your Entire Network: "Imagine what the internet would look like without pesky ads taking over your page all the time. Luckily, local whitelists and router scripts make that dream a reality and don't take too much effort to install.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Virgin Galactic unveils its latest thrill ride | Cutting Edge - CNET News

Virgin Galactic unveils its latest thrill ride | Cutting Edge - CNET News: ""

-

Google Goggles - Use pictures to search the web

Google Goggles - Use pictures to search the web: ""

-

Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends

Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends: "Arthur C. Clarke, Neil Gaiman and other writers changed our world by putting their own visions down on the page. The favor gets returned when comics pros train their inks and brushes on literary legends for web gallery Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

How to Fix a Scratched CD

How to Fix a Scratched CD: "Finding an old stack of CDs or DVDs under your stereo is a mixed blessing. There's your long lost copy of Doobie Brothers, but there's a gigantic scratch on it. Here's our guide to salvaging your CDs and listening to the music.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Applying Quantitative Analysis to Classic Lit

Applying Quantitative Analysis to Classic Lit: "Stanford English professor Franco Moretti, famous in bookish circles for graphing, mapping and charting novels by hand, is going digital. He hopes to soon be flying through the creative output of entire eras, ultimately changing the way we look at literary history.

"

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Apple Looking to Acquire Music Streaming Service Lala?

Apple Looking to Acquire Music Streaming Service Lala?: "CNET reports that Apple is in 'advanced' negotiations to acquire music streaming firm Lala. The news comes from two sources who reportedly have knowledge of the discussions between the two companies.

Talks are very advanced, said the..."

MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com

EtherPad Shuts Down after Google Acquisition

EtherPad Shuts Down after Google Acquisition: "

EtherPad is a Web-based tool for simultaneous writing, in which multiple people can see keystrokes as other people type them. It's now about to disappear after the acquisition by Google of AppJet, the firm that developed and supports EtherPad, and its developers.

EtherPad will continue to operate until 31 March 2010 for registered free and paid users, although AppJet won't charge fees after 4 December 2009. Free public pads can no longer be created, nor can new accounts be registered. Paid users can download all their current documents via the account page. Downloadable versions of the software will be supported through current contracts.

The AppJet folks are joining the group behind Google Wave, the invitation-only service in testing by Google for simultaneous and sequential writing, discussion, and interaction. I've been using it for some weeks, and still find it baffling, where EtherPad was instantly explicable and useful. I hope the AppJet team brings its approach with them. (Two of the three AppJet developers were previously Google employees, reports GigaOm, which notes the deal was worth 'less than $20 million.')

I wrote about EtherPad early this year - see 'EtherPad Brings Simultaneous Writing to the Web,' 16 February 2009 - after we at TidBITS started using it extensively. While we still like SubEthaEdit, which has its own advantages, EtherPad allowed ad hoc and program-free collaboration.

EtherPad was created by AppJet, a firm that started up to develop a Web applications platform - a simplified way for companies to start with all the basics to build rich browser-based programs. EtherPad was a bit of a proof of concept that turned into a separate line of business.

'

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'

Copyright © 2009 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright © 2009 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

"

TidBITS - http://www.tidbits.com/

Awkward News Ahead

Awkward News Ahead: "Geoffrey Miller on some inconvenient truths in the human genome. The trouble is, the resequencing data will reveal much more about human evolutionary history and ethnic differences than they will about disease genes. Once enough DNA is analysed around the world, science will have a panoramic view of human genetic variation across races, ethnicities and regions."

Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/

Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists

Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists: "Blue whales are singing in a lower voice all around the world, but scientists can't figure out why."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research

Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research: "Nicknamed the 'single-chip cloud computer,' the processor consumes about the same power as two standard household bulbs."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Bees Release Deadly Odor That Shortens Sibling Lifespans

Bees Release Deadly Odor That Shortens Sibling Lifespans: "Honeybee larvae release pheromones that effectively trim the lifespans of their older sibling caretakers."

Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml