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Once we replace the personal computer with a closed-platform device such as the iPad, we replace freedom, choice and the free market with oppression, censorship and monopoly.
— Tom Conlon for Popular Science on the iPad’s closed system
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Google’s Nexus One may be a fantastic phone, but one of its “features” is just ####### pointless. Chris Matyszczyk reports for CNET:
It will, dare I utter the word when referring to a product from the newly emancipated Google, censor you. You see, the pungently polite people at Reuters were playing with their Nexus One when they noticed something about its built-in voice-to-text feature. Every time they said something naughty into the phone, the naughty word came out as “####”, and not just “f—.” It even censored the “S” part of BS.
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Here’s a riddle: How do you make your book a best seller on the Kindle? Answer: Give copies away.
— Motoko Rich’s “With Kindle, Publishers Give Away E-Books to Spur Sales” for The New York Times
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Haiti: 360° →
CNN has created an amazing moving map of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. By using an ever-moving camera, you can get four different three hundred and sixty degree view of the living hell that Haiti is right now. Imagine if Google Street View met video.
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Sweethearts, the heart-shaped conversation candies that bill themselves as the official love candy, have unveiled new technology-driven expressions for Valentine’s Day. Because there’s nothing more romantic then whoring out your internet persona.
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Fed up of lugging a heavy laptop around? Soon you could be typing documents and browsing the web on any nearby surface with the aid of a pioneering pocket-sized projector. An innovative British company called Light Blue Optics has created the Light Touch, which transforms any surface into a 10.1in touch screen, reminiscent of the film Minority Report. (via Daily Mail)
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Daring Fireball T-Shirts have been released, just in time for the holidays! The shirts are $29,
and all come with a one-year subscription to Daring Fireball. The perfect present for the geek in your life. -
Can You Truly Vanish in The Digital Age? →
In the September issue of Wired, Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people disappear in the digital age. Then he went on the run himself, with Wired readers trying to track him down. His story, “Gone”, tells what happened.
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21 November 2009
Reblogged from
zackshapiro
The Magic Mouse is to Apple what David is to Michelangelo (if Michelangelo’s previous sculpture was absolute rubbish). I know the prediction I’m about to make is wrong, knowing Apple, but I don’t see them making another mouse for a very long time.
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It was only a matter of time, right? Check out this setup where a laptop player controls “Pac-Man” while being chased by robo-vacuum ghosts. And get this: it’s actually a demo of their unmanned aerial software that guides airborne vehicles.
That’s why the red tape marking the maze is really only there for the video. The player sees a virtual representation on screen, and the ghost roombas use internal odometry with a positioning system to find their way around, and avoid each other. (via Gizmodo)
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Geocaching in a nutshell.
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‘2001’ Fans, Rejoice! Why HAL Sang ‘Daisy’
We’re sure many of you are familiar with the death-of-HAL scene from the Kubrick classic ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ in which the rebellious computer slowly, and childishly, drones the lyrics to ‘Daisy Bell’. It’s one of the most memorable scenes in a film loaded with iconic images (the obelisk) and phrases (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”), yet we’ve always wondered: Why ‘Daisy?’
It turns out that the choice of ‘Daisy Bell’ was a tribute to the IBM 704, which, thanks to the brilliant programmers at Bell Labs, became the first computer to sing, way back in 1962. The popular ditty from the late 19th century was chosen by geniuses John L. Kelly, Carol Lockbaum, and Max Mathews as part of a demonstration of speech synthesis. Before he’d penned the film’s namesake novel, author Arthur C. Clarke, who also co-wrote the screenplay, paid a visit to a friend at Bell Labs. There, Clarke was treated to a performance by the IBM 704, and later, inspired by what he’d seen, reproduced it in the dramatic death scene of HAL 9000.
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If businesses, governments, and education institutions don’t upgrade to a newer IP address standard relatively soon, we could experience an unnerving scenario: the world running out of Internet addresses.
