Digital Culture
A tiny radio chip is arousing fear — but also great enthusiasm. Is it a threat to everything that we know as personal data protection, or the optimal way of keeping track in a chaos of products?
"When the human eye searches for an object it looks globally for the rough location, size and orientation of the object. Then it zeros in on the details," said Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science. "Our method behaves in a similar fashion, using a linear approximation to explore the search space globally and quickly; then it works to identify the moving object by frequently updating trust search regions."
"Which is why no one likes to hang with Tyrese," says his costar Kevin Dunn, mentioning the potential global embarrassment of candid -- and yes, possibly drunken -- photos being sent out to "everyone on the planet." "Here's me, with a glass of tequila on my forehead," says Dunn, as everyone laughs.
The developers of the Blu-ray high-definition video format may have beat HD DVD on the technology, but both are losing the war for the hearts and minds of video consumers who look to cable, satellite and the Internet for video.
As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years... City officials maintain the policy is necessary to ensure employees' integrity and protect the public's trust, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana says they may be crossing the line.... [MAY be crossing the line? MAY BE????!!!!!]
Recently-predicted and much-sought, the material allows electrons on its surface to travel with no loss of energy at room temperatures and can be fabricated using existing semiconductor technologies. Such material could provide a leap in microchip speeds, and even become the bedrock of an entirely new kind of computing industry based on spintronics, the next evolution of electronics.
Scientists have discovered a "magnetic superatom" -- a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table -- that one day may be used to create molecular electronic devices for the next generation of faster computers with larger memory storage.
A Nevada newspaper says it has been served a federal grand jury subpoena seeking information about readers who posted comments on the paper's Web site. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday that its editor, Thomas Mitchell, plans to fight the request, which the newspaper received after reporting on a federal tax fraud case against business owner Robert Kahre.... prosecutors told the judge in the case that some comments hinted at acts of violence and the subpoena was issued out of concern for jurors' safety....
Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled today... [OMG! Imagine Britain ruling this on print during the Revolution!]
On Tuesday, Opera released Opera Unite, a technical preview of a service that turns the Opera browser into a Web server for file sharing and streaming.
National Digital Newspaper Program celebrates the first 1 million pages posted on a free, government-funded Web site.
Google.... co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service
The researchers hope that use of their fish robot for ship propulsion will help prevent shoreline erosion and the underminings of submarine installations caused by ships' screws. The fish robot's "soft" drive action should also prevent the churning up of seabeds and riverbeds and its effects on marine plants and aquatic-animal populations.
Engineering students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that message automatically sent to an e-mail address.
Religiously devout Jews barred by rabbis from surfing the Internet may now "Koogle" it on a new "kosher" search engine... rabbis... restrict use of the Web to ensure followers avoid viewing sexually explicit material.... links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes... "If you try to buy something on the Sabbath, it gets stuck and won't let you...."
The European Commission has issued a statement that seems to side with Opera's position. The EU said: "The Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of Web browsers. Instead, Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a Web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."
An advocacy group for online poker said Tuesday that the federal government has frozen more than $30 million in the accounts of payment processors that handle the winnings of thousands of online poker players.
After nearly two decades in the business, Microsoft plans to stop selling its Microsoft Money personal-finance software...
The decision is a setback for the music and movie industries, which had praised the French law as a solution to illegal file sharing.
with actual user names
27 hydraulic cylinders bring the mechs to life, its movements matching those of the person inside it
Snake broadcasts pictures, sound to soldier with laptop [video]
Two reports commissioned by ICANN say new top-level Internet domains will not force trademark owners to make defensive registrations to protect their brands,
The introduction of generic top-level domains (TLDs) could wreak havoc across the internet if they are not implemented carefully and with suitable regulations in place to help minimise the risk of abuse.... most internet users do not believe that the liberalisation will have any discernable benefit to their online experience, and the majority believe it will lead to pointless domains, making the internet more complex, messy and confusing.....
A group of DNS registrars claims that VeriSign's exclusive contract to manage the .com registry is a product of lobbying, astroturfing, meeting stacking, and legal threats—and it has meant that .com domains cost twice what they otherwise would.
Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year... The price of $185,000 [$185,000!!!!!] will initially limit applications to the largest corporations and organizations....
As the inventor of Boolean logic, which is the basis of modern digital computer logic, Boole is regarded in hindsight as one of the founders of the field of computer science.
Scientists at the University of Florida are developing a neural implant that can think independently. This is not just an implant that deciphers brain signals, but one that can learn, adapt to various scenarios and help the host achieve certain goals.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 peripheral-free 3D motion-sensor is certainly impressive in E3 demos, but what happens when you unplug players entirely? ... When you take the controller away for an "untethered" experience, you introduce a brand new issue: What about feedback?
It didn't long for people to discover that a single click on the search filter settings in Bing made porn clips available right from within the Bing search page. I like to call it "porn-in-a-portal."
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