Microsoft Voice Command: " We had it installed on a HP iPaq H3970 running Windows Mobile 2003. It brings to the Pocket PC world that feeling of 'Star Trek', some of the stuff we used to dream of while watching the movies on TV. Like Mr Spock saying 'computer, where is Captain Kirk now?'"

Terahertz Scanners See Inside Sealed Packages: "Japanese scientists have demonstrated a system that detects the presence of illicit drugs that are concealed within an envelope. Tests to date have shown that the imaging system can successfully detect and identify a range of substances including ecstasy (MDMA) and methamphetamine. The researchers are now working with companies to develop a mail screening system that could suit use in post offices and airports."

Elliott Smith's Idea Of Heaven Was Modest: "he died Tuesday, Oct. 21, of a single, self-inflicted stab-wound to the chest. Like so many rock deaths, his was a long time in the making, but no less sad or shocking for all the warnings that preceded it. 'Give me one reason not to do it,' Smith sang on his final album, which now remains unfinished. "

:(

More on 'Big Mac': "In preliminary performance tests carried out on 2,112 of the system's 2,200 processors, the so-called 'Big Mac' cluster achieved 8.1 teraflops, or trillions of operations per second, according to figures published on Wednesday. The system is still being tuned, and final results won't be announced until next month, but the performance figure would place the Big Mac at No. 4 on the list of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers.

The figures are remarkable partly because Macintosh hardware has long been absent from the top 500 list, but also because of the Big Mac's cost. In a world where the top machines traditionally cost $100 million to $250 million, and take several years to build, the Mac-based system cost just over $5 million, and was put together in about a month. "

thats what i'm sayin', big up cupertino!!!

G5 Cluster: "The New York Times provides preliminary numbers for the fully assembled PowerMac G5 Cluster which Virginia Tech assembled this month.

The preliminary numbers rank the G5 Cluster as the 4th in the world in performance with 7.41 trillion operations per second . Official results will not be reported until November, and Tech reports that they are 'still finalizing their results and that the final speed number might be significantly higher.'

The relative cost of the entire assembly is significantly less then previous solutions."

word!!!

Sony Ericsson: P900, need more be said?!?

Linux. The Future Is Open.: "If Linux were a person, he would be growing, fast. Taught by the best. Gaining wisdom beyond his years. And sharing. He would be in business, education, government and homes. He would be a nine-year-old boy changing the world."

looks like ibm is going for game set match! this ad (90 sec, full cut) is an absolute must watch!!!

Big Thinkers, KurzweilAI.net hosts lots of great writings from thoes with big brains!!!

AI Sues For Its Life In Mock Trial: "Attorney Dr. Martine Rothblatt filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent a corporation from disconnecting an intelligent computer in a mock trial at the International Bar Association conference in San Francisco. Assuming Moore's law holds, ethics might be in for some major revisions in a couple decades. High-end computer systems may surpass the computational ability of the standard human brain within 20 years. In this mock trial, an AI asks a lawyer for help after learning of plans to shut it down and replace its core hardware, essentially killing it. The transcript provides an in-depth look at what could become a real issue in the future."

i have been saying this was gona be the next big thing...here we go!!!

Universities Developing Internal, Controlled P2P System, "Penn State along with MIT and the University of British Columbia are developing a P2P application (called LionShare in the PSU incarnation) to be used only by students, faculty and staff. According to this article at the Penn State Daily Collegian, the file-sharing program, which wouldn't be completed until 2005 at the earliest, would log each transaction, allowing illegal use of the network to be traced. The purpose of this is to lessen the load on servers for tasks such as professors sending files to students, thereby decreasing the amount of manpower necessary to administer them. Funding will come in part by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, as well as from the students' information technology fee."

not sure i like the tracking, but what's important to note is p2p is basically just like load balancing, about time some one else explained this. i have been bringing it up in my law classes for years but seems lost on most. p2p is just an architecture!!!

Supreme Court Will Hear Pledge of Allegiance Case, "As reported in this CNN.com article, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next year (most likely in June) involving whether public schools can lead students in a 'voluntary' recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. At issue in this case is whether the inclusion of the phrase 'under God' in the pledge constitutes an establishment of religion on the part of the state and an infringement on students' religious liberty when it is recited in the public school setting. This case comes to the Supreme Court as an appeal of the June 2002 ruling made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--a decision that led to one of the most active stories in Slashdot history.' The CNN article's emphasis on voluntariness -- 'whether schoolchildren can be allowed to recite the Pledge voluntarily' -- is grossly misleading, almost propagandistic. Most states have laws requiring the pledge to be recited every day as a class activity, and these are the laws in question. In theory students shouldn't be punished for failing to recite along with the rest of the class (due to a previous Supreme Court decision). No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to."

Transmeta Introduces The Efficeon, "Information Week and others are reporting on Transmeta's new Efficeon chip. 1.1 GHz, 7 Watts, 1MB cache, 130 nanometer technology. A marked improvement over their previous generation. Let's hope they can capitalize on this before Intel starts filling the same niche. Looks like a nice product, Linus and Co."

thanks linus, keep on keepin' on!!!

Does Your Company Censor the Content for You?, "A few days ago a friend of mine and I were discussing this story. He was trying to make a joke about some content in the article that might be considered 'inappropriate' (the bit concerning 22,000 files). I didn't get his joke because the interesting bits weren't there. With a little investigation, I determined that my company's proxy server was delivering a modified version. Is this a common practice? Has anyone else noticed something similar?'


'In this case, words were not just filtered out, but the text had been changed so that the document still made sense. I suspect that someone monitoring a log and suddenly saw a document show up a bunch of times with the offending text in it. Then they modified the cached copy (I was viewing it a day after it hit the Slashdot front page) to make the alarm go away.

I have mix feelings about this, on one hand, even though the text in this case was meant as a joke and the content wasn't very offensive, I was using company equipment. But on the other hand, this company is a government regulated entity which isn't above pressuring its employees to vote the way management thinks is best (whether it is or not is a question for history). So I guess I'm scared that the company could push an agenda though 'stealth channels'. I realize that the information I read online can't always be trusted, but there are many people who don't know that. It's probably important to note that, while there is a policy of acceptable computer use, there has never been a notice that they might change the content we see online."

be afraid!!!

China Sends First Taikonaut To Space, "Space.com reports that China has just successfully launched its first manned space mission. 'Blasting off from a remote space base in the Gobi Desert atop a Long March 2F rocket, a single Chinese astronaut named Yang Liwei is on his way to circle the planet every 90 minutes aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. As a result, China has become only the third nation on Earth capable of independently launching its citizens into orbit. ' Perhaps this will kick the US space program back into gear?' aerojad points to this Reuters report, about which he says 'The article is short on details, aside from 'Xinhua said the craft carried astronaut Yang Liwei, 38. The launch on Wednesday, 42 years after the Soviet Union put the first man into space, marked a milestone for China's secretive space programme, which analysts say has its sights set on a manned mission to the moon.' The mission is due to end in 21 hours.' zxm adds a link to China Daily's coverage, and puiwah to a story on MSNBC."

maybe now we'll start thinking about getting off our arses!!!

142 Directors Appeal MPAA to Repeal Screener Ban: "Nearly 150 directors, including heavy hitters such as Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Redford, and others have sent a letter to Jack Valenti & the MPAA. In the letter, published in the Friday issue of Variety, they call for an end to the ban on screeners, suggesting that the lack of screeners will harm the potential of movies that take risks and rely on critical acclaim. Despite the star power behind those signing on the letter, and after a conference call with 3 studio executives, what was the MPAA's response? '...the screener policy remains as it was originally announced.' Will this mean an end to Academy Awards going to movies that open in only 100 theaters nationwide, or will it take an entire studio chain such as Universal or MGM to knock some sense into Valenti's mind?" take that jack!!!

Online Journalists are ISPs?, "Long-time C|Net reporter and Politech operator Declan McCullagh has been contacted by the FBI, according to his most recent article. The FBI requests that he retain all records regarding his talks with Adrian Lamo. The problem? The FBI's letter was sent under the auspices of a law which applies only to internet service providers. Says Declan, 'Perhaps I'd be immune from the FBI's demands if I used an Underwood No. 5 typewriter instead.' Does writing online now qualify one as an ISP?" i have been saying this for years!!!

Possible PS2 Price Portent Pondered, "Could Nintendo soon be sharing shelf space at the $99 rack? According to an article on IGN.com, an internal source at Target claims to have received printed fliers with the Playstation 2 listed at $99. If you remember from an earlier story from September, it was an advance newspaper ad from Target (again), as well as a leaked scan of a Wal-Mart ad, that told the world about the GameCube's price before it happened. Given how the GameCube is outselling the PS2 & XBox - would a price drop so low be so unexpected? One last tidbit to contemplate: Sony is ready to roll the manufacturing plants for their smaller 90 nanometer PS2 CPU. Maybe that price drop isn't so unbelievable after all..." WOW!!!

EMusic sold; Unlimited MP3 Downloads Nixed, "EMusic, one of the oldest digital music subscription services still operating, is being sold by parent company Vivendi Universal after years of operating in the shadow of younger rivals."

End of an era!!!

Student Faces Suit Over Key To CD Locks, "SunnComm Technologies, a developer of CD antipiracy technology, said Thursday that it will likely sue a Princeton student who early this week showed how to evade the company's copy protection by pushing a computer's Shift key."

this is getting more ridiculous by the day!!!

The Place To Go To Find The Place To Go From Your Chair, fucking finally!!!

Just in case. Flight #2004 on southwest can be reached by usual methods to get at my mobile. Be with sunny ht and d if mine is not functioning.

Napster

Napster bits, fucking briliant!!!

pictures of you has been licenced by hp. here's to you robert!!!

a little catch up on the last few days. jeremy appears from the past. cat visits. radiohead is no longer in the worst live act ever category. started at wonderland. anna christina eric thank you your all bomb! having really good time learning tons. meeting dope new kids. school good. kids good. interviewing at lions gate next week for spring internship and cred. digital rights and tunes con with passman!

New Solar Cells 20 Times Cheaper: "STMicroelectronics has announced a new generation of photocells made from organic plastics. Over a typical 20-year life span of a solar cell, a single produced watt should cost as little as $0.20, compared with the current $4. See also article @ cnn.com. On a related note, this article @ IEEE discusses new improved LED technology by the same team."

this ones for paul, very cool!!!

Innocent File-Sharers Could Appear Guilty?, "New Scientist has an article about what could be a promising defense strategy for people targeted by the RIAA. Basically, anyone on the Gnutella network can frame other users by making it look like someone is hosting RIAA music, even though they're not. Therefore, the RIAA's 'evidence' against file sharers is theoretically unreliable and wouldn't stand as good a chance of holding up in court. No mention of whether this has anything to do with the RIAA's eagerness to settle the lawsuits out of court. The article is based on a research paper posted anonymously to a web hosting service in Australia."

interesting!!!

pure design, dope design, thx tree!!!