- Steve Jobs keen on a world where people share WiFi
“I really think [Jobs] liked the idea of FON. I think he loves the idea of a world where people share WiFi. That I could tell,” Varsavsky said. “I think he would like for there to be an opporunity for everyone to share WiFi.”
- Why I stopped writing songs
Thirty-one years ago, I wrote my last commercial song. On May 24, 1976, I composed, arranged and orchestrated the song entitled Panaginip. It was a big hit back then in my HOTDOG years. I remember it was such a big hit that the late Bobby Ledesma would sing it everyday at the end of the noontime show Student Canteen; it had become his favorite.
- Inside the mind of a 9-year-old file-sharer
Why would they put it [music] on the internet and invent mp3 players if it was against the law?
- Next-gen credit cards to feature miniature displays and keypads
This is something else that will have to be rolled into convergence devices. Still, one step at a time!
- AT&T offers free WiFi to Southern California residents affected by wildfires
As the wildfires in Southern California rage on for a second straight week, residents struggling to connect with family members and friends are getting a little help from AT&T — the company has decided to give away free WiFi at all of its wireless hotspots in the area. The hotspots in Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Orange and Ventura counties are all open without restriction and have been since Saturday — a generous move by AT&T (regardless of the speculation regarding the company’s motives), and hopefully one that will allow those affected to get in touch with their loved ones.
- Apple branches past studios for film deals
Tunes is said to be attractive to short filmmakers, who have not typically had a means to make money on their output, but less so to feature producers, for whom the iTunes market is still too small. Burns partner Aaron Lubin remarks that furthermore, as a result of their iTunes deal, DVD distributors have been offering lower advance payments, expecting digital sales to eat into profits.
Now this is especially interesting considering the industry I’m about to get into. I had always been ready to write off any short film as a loss — there was simply no way to ever make any money off of them. But if one can distribute them for a price through Apple, then I may be tempted to make more short films, especially if I could use those to supplement my income the way most filmmakers use advertisement work.
- More than a dozen states are gearing up to sue the Bush administration for holding up efforts to regulate automobile emissions
The move comes as New York and other Northeastern states are stepping up their push for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases as part of their continuing opposition to President Bush’s policies. On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is to issue regulations requiring power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, part of a broader plan among 10 Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to move beyond federal regulators in Washington and regulate such emissions on their own.
- ‘55 science paper retracted to thwart creationists
The New York Times has up a story about a paper published in 1955 by Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College. The paper, entitled ‘Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life’, speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in the Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, ‘one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive.’ Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, but today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want — from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention. So after 52 years, he has retracted the paper. ‘Dr. Jacobson’s retraction is in “the noblest tradition of science,” Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobson’s letter. His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, “the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction,” and people who “cling to dogma.”
- Accused speeder to cops: My GPS proves your radar gun is wrong
GPS-based tracking devices don’t just help you figure out where you are and where you’re going, they might also help you avoid a speeding ticket. Shaun Malone of California is contesting a speeding ticket in that state by arguing that his GPS-based tracking system shows that the officer’s radar gun was wrong.
- Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history
It’s gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.
Now, you may think he’s merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it. It’s a bit like the melting of the polar ice caps. Sure, there’s been alarmist data about it for years, but until you see it for yourself, the deep visceral dread doesn’t really hit home.
- iTunes Store boosts indie offerings while Hollywood still holds out
Our best hope for now is that a growing indie film segment in the iTunes Store will drag the movie dinosaurs out of their self-imposed mothballs and into the 21st digital distribution century. We aren’t quite ready to start holding our breath just yet, though.
If indie distribution through iTunes can bring in the budgets for films that the major studios can leverage, then it’ll be a very interesting game change indeed.
- Why monks are so darn happy
The answer is, of course, that the monks have worked very hard to become happy, peaceful people. They spend hours a day meditating and quieting the mind, and they also work hard to maintain a philosophy of compassion for all human beings.
Question is, why does it take so much work to become a compassionate, peaceful, happy person? Why aren’t we all wearing saffron robes and laughing?
- Poll: many pessimistic about environment
Only about one in five voiced approval of how President Bush, Congress and U.S. businesses have been handling the environment. And while decisive majorities said they want strong public and private action, fewer than one in 10 said they had seen such steps in the past year, according to the poll by The Associated Press and Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment.
- Americans willing to pay for global warming remedies
Americans were willing to pay more money in property taxes, home costs and utility fees to support initiatives that would encourage people to use less energy and get that energy from alternative sources, the surveys showed. They follow other polls that have found concern for the environment is growing among Americans and bolder action is desired.
- Out of a coma, into the Apple Store
Geoff Evila miraculously recovered from a four month coma after a near fatal car accident that took place in early June this year during a road trip to Las Vegas. Weeks after his amazing recovery Evila learned that the iPhone had been launched to overwhelming success. Before his accident Geoff had planned to camp out in line for his very own iPhone, but without any warning everything suddenly went black. Geoff realized that he had some catching up to do as he began to put the pieces of his life back together.
- New research indicates babies are born with violent tendencies that most learn to control
It is not the cartoons that make your kids smack playmates or violently grab their toys but, rather, a lack of social skills, according to new research.
“It’s a natural behavior and it’s surprising that the idea that children and adolescents learn aggression from the media is still relevant,” says Richard Tremblay, a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Montreal, who has spent more than two decades tracking 35,000 Canadian children (from age five months through their 20s) in search of the roots of physical aggression. “Clearly youth were violent before television appeared.”
- Radiohead: 01 and 10
Ten years after OK Computer shocked the world, Radiohead released In Rainbows on October 10 (10/10). Though no one was expecting the album to be released until 2008, Radiohead announced In Rainbows just ten days in advance. In Rainbows, which consists of ten letters, has ten tracks, and would be downloadable from a rumored ten servers.
Radiohead preceded the release of In Rainbows with nine cryptic messages. They repeatedly emphasized X, the Roman Numeral for ten, in phrases such as “March Wa X”, and “Xendless Xurbia”. The tenth message was posted on October 10 with a photo of the band drinking tea.
(Hat tip: Wesa)
- Even free can’t compete with music piracy
Despite the potentially free download, over 240,000 users got the album from peer to peer BitTorrent networks on the first day of release, according to Forbes. Since then, the album was downloaded about 100,000 more times each day, totaling more than 500,000. By comparison, Radiohead pushed 1.2 million sales of the album through their site, including pre-orders.
But before you declare the experiment a failure, I’d like to point out this little gem:
But Radiohead doesn’t have that much to be sad about. The band gets to keep all the proceeds of their digital experiment and has distributed about six times more albums than their last release, which sold 300,000. That seemed to be enough to get EMI thinking harder about changing. Forbes obtained a email from EMI’s chairman saying “The industry, rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, has stuck its head in the sand. Radiohead’s actions are a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.” So it seems there’s still hope yet that those legal war chests will be put to use on some innovations.
- Colbert for President!
- Martian volcanoes may not be extinct
Although scientists have never observed a volcanic Mars, recent images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express missions suggest the volcanoes there have been active within the past two million years and might still be. Also, the sparse impact craters near the three Tharsis volcanoes indicate relatively recent eruptions.
- CBC’s The Hour wins Gemini for best talk show
A well-deserved award, I must say. Ever since I stumbled across the show on late-night television last year, I’ve been a huge fan. I was really struck by how good of an interviewer George Stroumboulopoulos is, asking some really good questions of British MP George Galloway. Some of the other great interviews I’ve seen him do include Henry Rollins and Richard Dawkins, among many others. If you haven’t seen the show, I highly recommend checking it out.
- Microsoft patenting the iPhone
No joke.
- Why leaves change colour
Meanwhile, orange and yellow pigments called carotenoids—also found in orange carrots—shine through the leaves’ washed out green.
“The yellow color has been there all summer, but you don’t see it until the green fades away,” said Paul Schaberg, U.S. Forest Service plant physiologist.
- Orange to sell unlocked iPhones in France
Now this is an interesting development. I wonder if this will increase demand worldwide for unlocked French iPhones…
- Second “Earth” found, 20 light years away
“We wouldn’t be surprised if there is life on this planet,” said Stephane Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.
I’m definitely in favour of naming it Terra Nova. It sure seems to fit the bill! Either way, this is a landmark discovery, and I’m aside myself with excitement.
- Atheists and anger
So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You’re telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You’re telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You’re telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it’s coupled with passionate anger. In a battle between David and Goliath, you’re telling David to put down his slingshot and just… I don’t know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or something.
- iTunes Plus DRM-free tracks expanding, dropping to 99 cents
Last night I actually bought a DRM-free Wyclef Jean track from iTunes Plus, and it only cost me $0.99, which sort of surprised me. Now I know why it cost so little.
- Microsoft wants to read your mind
Is anyone else frightened by the prospect of having a Microsoft product interfacing directly with their brain? I’d be afraid of a BSOD taking my whole brain down with it. And since it’s Microsoft, you know it will be buggy as hell and full of security holes.
- Black Google would save 750 megawatt-hours a year
Let’s assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that’s about $75,000/year, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.
- Greenpeace hangs up on the iPhone
Honestly, is anyone surprised by this latest criticism of Apple by Greenpeace? According to Greenpeace, Apple’s current ranking for environmental policies is (still) among the worst of tech companies. It’s not surprising that even though the iPhone complies with both US and EU standards, it’s still not good enough for Greenpeace. Of course, what is good for Greenpeace is the publicity associated with targeting one of the most popular brands on the planet, even though that company sells far fewer products with hazardous chemicals than competitors with far larger shares of the market. One could argue that the intensity of the effort directed against Apple might have have a greater effect in the real world if focused on HP, as an example, but what’s good for Greenpeace is ultimately good for the planet, right?
- Man dies after being Tasered by police at Vancouver airport
The man dropped to the floor and police said it took three officers to handcuff him. He then lost consciousness and appeared to go into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at the airport, the CBC’s Chris Brown reported.
- I love Mars, and I vote
It’s barely 8 a.m. as Chris Carberry stands in the middle of a field in the early morning sunlight, shivering slightly. He’s waiting for Barack Obama, who is due to speak in about two hours. Obama volunteers are wary. Could Carberry be a researcher from the Clinton campaign? Or a dangerous nut? No, Carberry is a motivated man determined to see through his mission: to find out where each of the presidential candidates stands on Mars.
- Real problems hidden behind thin fashion models
The real tragedy is that, because of the many myths about anorexia, much of the public’s attention is being misguided. If the money and resources spent screening fashion models went to study the real causes of anorexia instead, we would be much closer to finding effective treatments.
- An ‘error’ is not the same thing as an error
A UK High Court judge has rejected a lawsuit by political activist Stuart Dimmock to ban the showing of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in British schools. Justice Burton agreed that
“Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”
There were nine points where Burton decided that AIT differed from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.
Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this decision as one that AIT contained nine scientific errors. Let me name some of the journalists who got it wrong: Sally Peck in the Daily Telegraph, Nico Hines in the Times, Mike Nizza in the New York Times, James McIntyre in the Independent, PA in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, David Adam in the Guardian, Daniel Cressey in Nature, the BBC, Mary Jordan in the Washington Post, Marcus Baram for ABC News, and (of course) Matthew Warren in the Australian.
Let’s look at what Burton really wrote…
- Microsoft pushes journalist out of plane
You can call Microsoft many things — but you definitely can’t call it boring. Or sane. In a fit of undeniable lunacy, Gates’ staff invited us to jump out of a plane last week, so that we could experience some new features in Vista. It didn’t make any sense then, and it makes even less sense now.
- Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview
In light of all the goings on recently with artists ditching their music labels and the turned tide of opinion against DRM, I thought a revisit to Steve Jobs’ Rolling Stone interview from 2003 was in order.
- ATA tries to have you arrested for using your iPhone in “Airplane Mode”
The iPhone has a setting that makes it safe to use on an airplane. So-called “airplane mode” disables cell phone, radio, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth signals, thus allowing you to watch movies staring Jennifer Love Hewitt while flying through the air.
And that’s what reader Casey tried to do. Unfortunately, it seems that the flight attendants had never heard of “airplane mode,” and called the police when Casey refused to stop watching I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- And the walls came tumbling down: Madonna dumps record industry
The only real question now is how fast will the music industry model come tumbling down. When Radiohead led the way in offering their music directly to fans many predicted that the move was the beginning of the end; Madonna may well be the tipping point from where we will now see a flood of recording artists dumping record labels and where todays [sic] model will shortly become a footnote in Wikipedia.
It’s only been four years since the iTunes Music Store fired the first shot at the music industry, and already the labels’ hegemony is crumbling. I love it!
- Council of Europe states must ‘firmly oppose’ the teaching of creationism as a scientific discipline, say parliamentarians
Money quote:
In a resolution passed by 48 votes to 25 during its plenary session in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) declared: “If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights.”
Have I mentioned that I totally love Europe? Because I do.
- Nine Inch Nails help seal record industry’s coffin
Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.
posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM.
I sincerely hope this means the end of peak-limited albums. Either way, congrats, Trent!
- Yahoo Music to record execs: No more DRM, ever
Yahoo! Music’s Ian Rogers:
I’m here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I’m not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I’ll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don’t have any more time to give and can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. Life’s too short. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out.
*applause*
- Searching for God in the Brain
Scientists and scholars have long speculated that religious feeling can be tied to a specific place in the brain. In 1892 textbooks on mental illness noted a link between “religious emotionalism” and epilepsy. Nearly a century later, in 1975, neurologist Norman Geschwind of the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital first clinically described a form of epilepsy in which seizures originate as electrical misfirings within the temporal lobes, large sections of the brain that sit over the ears. Epileptics who have this form of the disorder often report intense religious experiences, leading Geschwind and others, such as neuropsychiatrist David Bear of Vanderbilt University, to speculate that localized electrical storms in the brain’s temporal lobe might sometimes underlie an obsession with religious or moral issues.
- Zune ranks 10th for “Ugliest Product in Tech History”
Money quote:
Still, it’s a bad sign when someone comes up with a Web site built entirely around the joke that no one would steal an iPod if it were hidden in a Zune casing—and people actually want to buy that casing.
- Elephants run from bees
Elephants are the largest beasts alive on land today. Yet these goliaths are afraid of bees, researchers have discovered. The giants flee when they hear the buzz of a bee swarm.
Their fear could be used to help protect them. The researchers figure strategically placed beehives might serve as low-tech elephant deterrents, to reduce conflicts between man and beast that often lead to the pachyderms being killed.
- Chimps act like humans: Mine! Mine! Mine!
By understanding how this behavior influences decisions regarding trade “in chimpanzees, we learn more about the social conditions our last common ancestor lived in and, hence, ourselves,” Brosnan said. For instance, when it comes to laws regarding property, these findings suggest “we have evolved a strong bias against letting go of our property, so in law it is important to take this in to consideration and put mechanisms in place to ameliorate it.”
- Gathering ‘Storm’ Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets
Not that we really have any idea how to mess with Storm. Storm has been around for almost a year, and the antivirus companies are pretty much powerless to do anything about it. Inoculating infected machines individually is simply not going to work, and I can’t imagine forcing ISPs to quarantine infected hosts. A quarantine wouldn’t work in any case: Storm’s creators could easily design another worm — and we know that users can’t keep themselves from clicking on enticing attachments and links.
Mac OS X unaffected.
- We win
I’ve counted only three non-Macs in the pic. As a fan of Apple even through the dark ages prior to Jobs’ return, this is incredibly satisfying to see. Want to know why the stock price closed above $160 today? That’s why. (Hat tip: Wesa)
- Bungie officially split from Microsoft
Bungie Studios and Microsoft have decided to go their separate ways, answering the prayers of many Mac gamers who have wished for this day ever since Microsoft’s acquisition of Bungie was first announced in 2000.
Next step: Wideload needs to buy Bungie, so that Alex can get his company back. Much love for Wideload, but it’s just not the same.
- Flaunting your fertility makes for big tips
Women on the pill averaged $37 (and had no performance peak) versus $53 for women off-pill. The contraceptive produces hormonal cues indicating early pregnancy, not an enticing target for a would-be suitor. Birth control could lead to many thousands of dollars lost every year.
- Delicious Library 2: coming to an iPhone near you
No, not a native app, but something almost as good: DL2 will include the option to export your library as a web page, which is very MobileSafari-friendly. There’s a demo of this feature available here, so you can see it in action. I’ve tested it out, and it’s pretty damned sweet!
- Visualising Fitts’ Law
Published in 1954, Fitts’s Law is an effective method of modeling the relationship of a very specific, yet common situation in interface design. That situation involves a human-powered appendage at rest (whether it’s physical like your finger or virtual like a mouse cursor) and a target area that’s located somewhere else.
An important concept to understand if you ever make anything that’s going to be used by people, and that includes almost all of us.
- Super-thin models banned from Montreal Fashion Week
Montreal Fashion Week organizers say underweight models will not be permitted to walk the runway owing to concerns over poor nutrition and eating disorders in the industry.
Let’s hope that this practise continues to spread throughout the industry.
- Pests thrive in organic apples
While the moth caterpillar infests organic and non-organic apples alike, the two types of farming rely on different forms of pest control. Rather than using chemical pesticides, organic apple growers typically use a pathogen known to infect insects, the codling moth granulovirus, to keep the apple munchers under control without harming the crops. This granulovirus belongs to a family of pathogens called baculovirus.
- Beyond a ’speed limit’ on mutations, species risk extinction
Harvard University scientists have identified a virtual “speed limit” on the rate of molecular evolution in organisms, and the magic number appears to be 6 mutations per genome per generation — a level beyond which species run the strong risk of extinction as their genomes lose stability.
- 1 room, no view
Eight artists snuck into the depths of Providence Place mall and built a secret studio apartment in which they stayed, on and off, for nearly four years until mall security finally caught their leader last week.
(Hat tip: Seguerra)
- Last day of life all planned out, down to the polka
There was much to do. Her family and closest friends would be gathering at 11 a.m. in the Portland assisted-living center where she lived with her mother.
She directed trips to the grocery store and even called AAA to jump-start the dead battery of her 2006 Scion. She double-checked delivery of food platters. There would be pink roses on the dining table and a boom box in the corner to play the polka tunes she loved.
Lovelle made one last trip to a wooden footbridge in a nearby park where she had found quiet sanctuary recently as cancer spread from her lungs through her chest and throat.
The consummate planner, she had choreographed the day. She wanted to leave time — five or so hours — for storytelling, polka dancing and private goodbyes. And at 4 p.m., she intended to drink a fatal dose of medication, allowed by Oregon law, that would end her life.
(Hat tip: Wesa)
- L.A. County calling for lights-out hour
Following San Francisco’s lead, Los Angeles County and city officials are urging people, businesses and government to switch off nonessential lights for one hour next month to save energy.
Led by Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, the proposed effort asks Angelenos to simultaneously go dark between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, as San Franciscans do the same. Local officials are expected to vote on the plan next week.
At the original event in Sydney, Australia, in March, 2.2 million people cut the lights, causing a 10% drop in electricity use. The so-called Earth Hour reduced 25 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking nearly 49,000 cars off the road for 60 minutes, organizers said.
I think it’s a great idea, but there’s one thing that bugs me: why should there be a special day where we turn off non-essential lights to save energy? Shouldn’t non-essential lights always be off? (Hat tip: Wesa)
