Technology as it applies to me.
BlackBerry tweet backfires on Research in Motion – latimes.com: “Research in Motion can’t catch a break. A tweet sent out Wednesday meant to promote its BlackBerry brand has backfired on the Canadian company, with many people using the tweet to bash RIM’s phones.”
Shep Smith outraged to find AT&T is slowing his phone service for using his ‘crap’ data plan | The Raw Story: “Shep Smith got a text message yesterday from his wireless provider, AT&T, informing him that because the WiFi at his house is broken, he’d become one of their top 5 percent of data users and would thus be getting slower wireless service. He was not pleased. “I’m not doing anything different than I ever have, but now they’re going to charge me more for the same thing I’ve always been doing. Thanks. Because, you know what, your system is awesome. It really works great,” he said sarcastically.
“I’m going to pay more for this crap? Because it’s crap!” he added.”
The Allied Victory Sidecar Motorcycle – Hammacher Schlemmer: “The Allied Victory Sidecar Motorcycle.
Description
This is the Ural-T sidecar motorcycle credited with helping the Russian army to achieve victory on the East Front during World War II. Regarded as a reliable workhorse by reconnaissance troops for tackling Russia’s unforgiving terrain and climate, it is now considered by enthusiasts to be the historical apex of the classic sidecar motorcycle. Still produced east of the Ural Mountains in Russia, it is updated with modern components for roadworthy cruising. Its electric starter (or kick starter for purists) starts its air-cooled, flat-twin 749cc engine, producing 40 hp for comfortable cruising along scenic routes up to 65 mph; its 5-gallon tank provides up to a 165-mile range. Its five-speed transmission (four forward and one reverse), adjustable twin hydraulic spring shock rear suspension, and front disc and rear drum brakes provide easy foot shifting, smooth rides, and confident stops. The single-wheel, all-steel detachable sidecar ensconces passengers in comfort with a padded vinyl seat and chassis-mounted shock absorbers; its trunk provides 3′ cu. of storage. Supports up to 580 lbs. of total payload. Black with maroon pinstripe. Special conditions and guarantee limitations apply. Please call 1-800-227-3528 for details. 8 1/2′ L x 5 1/2′ W x 43 1/4″ H. (705 lbs.)
Price:
$10,000”
U.S. Patent Office Honors Steve Jobs with iPhone-Shaped Exhibit: “The late Steve Jobs has been hailed as a brilliant businessman, marketer, and visionary. He was also an prolific inventor, if the number of patents bearing his name are any indication.
No less than 323 Apple patents list Jobs among the inventors responsible for them. Now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is honoring the Apple founder with a dedicated exhibit.”
Zombie-Proof House Keeps the Walking Dead and Jehovah’s Witnesses at Bay | The Last Goddess Magazine: ““The Safe House,” designed by KWK Promes, is the perfect house for anyone who fears attack by zombies, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons.
Located in Poland, by day the house is a two-story concrete cube, with 6,100 square feet of spacious living areas, floor to ceiling windows, panoramic views of the surrounding landscape, and a beautiful indoor swimming pool.
But by night, or in the event of a zombie or creepy religious fanatic attack, heavy doors and shutters slide closed, providing “maximum security” for the people hunkered down inside.
It isn’t the most beautiful design in the world, but when the zombiepocalypse comes it may very well be where mankind makes its last stand.”
Yelp Update Makes Fun Of Rick Perry’s Debate Flub In App Update: “At the GOP debate in Detroit, Republican presidential nominee Rick Perry committed a memorable gaffe when he claimed that he would eliminate three government agencies and was only able to name two, totally brain-farting on the third (Read all about it and watch the cringe-inducing video of Perry’s flub here).
Now, the day after, the local guide Yelp is mocking this political brain-fart in their iOS app update.
“There are three types of bugs that are now gone,” the update says:”
Adobe touts the end of blurred photos with new Photoshop feature: “Adobe is developing an upcoming feature for Photoshop that could end the problem of blurred photos forever.
The new feature was demoed at the company’s MAX 2011 event, drawing gasps of amazement from a crowd that witnessed a blurred photo, retouched and perfected in seconds. Advanced algorithms calculate the movements of the camera at the time the image was taken, enabling the user to ‘fix’ the image by unblurring it – saving what would ordinarily be a disappointing, dud image.
As the video – which is unfortunately slightly shakey itself – demonstrates, the process can be used on a photo captured on a mobile device to sharpen the quality and, in the case of text-based images, reveal more data.
Though it was showcased at MAX, Adobe has no official release date for the anti-blur feature, though suffice to say it is likely to get a very warm welcome when it is finally available to the public.”
Lower court’s ruling stands: Downloading music is not a crime | The Raw Story: “(Reuters) – The Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that a traditional Internet download of sound recording does not constitute a public performance of the recorded musical work under federal copyright law.
The justices refused to review a ruling by an appeals court in New York that the download itself of a musical work does not fall within the law’s definition of a public performance of that work.
The not-for-profit American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) appealed to the Supreme Court. It said the ruling has profound implications for the nation’s music industry, costing its members tens of millions of dollars in potential royalties each year.”
16 ‘super-Earths’ found outside solar system – Light Years – CNN.com Blogs: “16 ‘super-Earths’ found outside solar system It’s not like aliens put up a welcome banner or anything, but scientists now have newly identified at least one planet that could potentially sustain life.
The European Southern Observatory has just announced the discovery of more than 50 new exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), including 16 super-Earths (planets whose mass is between one and 10 times that of our own planet).
One of these planets in particular could theoretically be home to life if conditions are right. It’s called HD 85512 b, and scientists say it’s about 3.6 times the mass of the Earth. This planet is about 35 light years from Earth. Its location with respect to its star suggests that this planet could have liquid water under certain circumstances.
Don’t get too excited, though; there’s a lot more work to be done to explore whether this planet is truly fit for life, in addition to whether there are alien life forms there.
The discovery comes from High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS. HARPS is located at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, and is part of a telescope that’s nearly 12 feet long.
Here’s how it works, according to ESO: When a planet orbits a star, the star move towards and away from the person who’s stargazing on Earth in a regular fashion. That’s called a change in radial velocity. Because of the Doppler effect, changes in radial velocity makes the star’s light spectrum move towards longer wavelengths when it’s moving away, and towards shorter wavelengths as it gets closer. HARPS can detect this shift in the spectrum, and infer that there is a planet present.
So far, scientists have confirmed the existence of 564 planets outside of our solar system, according to NASA’s PlanetQuest website, not counting this latest batch of more than 50. Beyond that, NASA’s Kepler mission has found more than 1,200 exoplanet candidates.
“In the coming 10 to 20 years we should have the first list of potentially habitable planets in the Sun’s neighbourhood. Making such a list is essential before future experiments can search for possible spectroscopic signatures of life in the exoplanet atmospheres,” said Michel Mayor, who led the HARPS team, in a statement.”
The Makayama Movie Mount is essentially a case for your iPad 2 that allows you to “radically improve video capture” by attaching a number of professional photography related peripherals. Some of the possibilities include third-party wide angle and tele-lenses, microphones and lights, and a standard tripod (not included) for “stable shots, pan & tilt camera movements”.
Simply clip the iPad 2 into the case and attach your third-party accessories to one of the two standard hot shoes or screw fittings. Wide angle lens conversion up to 0.5x and zoom-angle up to 2x comes courtesy of a 37mm screw fitting that allows you to attach conversion lenses and even switch between the attached lens and the iPad’s lens on the fly.
Radically improve iPad 2 video capture with the Makayama Movie Mount | 9to5Mac | Apple Intelligence: “”
Anonymous to Wall Street: Expect Us: “Anonymous to Wall Street: Expect Us By Adbusters 25 August 11
Jammers, dreamers, patriots,
Anonymous has just released a video communique endorsing #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. Using language from our first Tactical Briefing, the video calls on protesters to adopt the nonviolent Tahrir-acampadas model. On the 17th of September, it says, “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months … Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.””
Native Instruments Komplete 8 Release & Features: “The Native Instruments juggernaut collection of Audio Instruments & Effects just got even bigger. Native Instruments has announced the all new Komplete 8 and it’s bigger than expected. To complete the Komplete 8 package are new versions of Kontakt, now at version 5, Guitar Rig 5 Pro and, a completely new product, Guitar Rig 5 Kontrol.
Komplete now comes in two flavours, Komplete 8 and Komplete 8 Ultimate. The later weighs in at over 240GB and includes over 50 different NI products. In fact, it’s so massive (sic) that it comes on a USB 2.0 external drive. Say goodbye hours spent installing from 20 DVDs!
Learn more about the differences between Komplete 8 and Komplete 8 Ultimate here. In this article let’s take a brief look at some of the new features and products in both Komplete bundles. “
House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history | The Raw Story: “The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users’ activity.
CNET reported the bill would require ISPs to retain customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses for 12 months.
The bill passed by a vote of 19 to 10, and is aimed at helping law enforcement track down pedophiles.
“The bill is mislabeled,” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a senior member of the panel told CNET. “This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It’s creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.””
New battery design could give electric vehicles a jolt: “A radically new approach to the design of batteries, developed by researchers at MIT, could provide a lightweight and inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. The technology could even make “refueling” such batteries as quick and easy as pumping gas into a conventional car.
The new battery relies on an innovative architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a carrier liquid and pumped through the system. In this design, the battery’s active components — the positive and negative electrodes, or cathodes and anodes — are composed of particles suspended in a liquid electrolyte. These two different suspensions are pumped through systems separated by a filter, such as a thin porous membrane. “
HP Pretends Linux Voids Netbook Hardware Warranty – The Consumerist: “Installing a different operating system on a computer does not change its hardware. This is a simple enough concept…unless you work in technical support for HP. Their phone tech support have joined their Geek Squad colleagues in insisting that a Linux-infested laptop was no longer under warranty.
Kyle didn’t want to put Windows back on his netbook just so his problem would fit phone support’s standard script. He tried to make tech support see logic…and eventually they did. (Or gave him a new battery so he would go away, but the end result is the same.)”
Cosmic burst in distant galaxy puzzles NASA | The Raw Story: “WASHINGTON – NASA is studying a surprising cosmic burst at the center of distant galaxy that has burned for more than a week, longer than astronomers have ever seen before, the US space agency said Thursday.
Calling it ‘one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts ever observed,’ NASA said it has mobilized the Hubble Space Telescope along with its Swift satellite and Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the phenomenon.
‘More than a week later, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade from its location,’ NASA said in a statement.
‘Astronomers say they have never seen such a bright, variable, high-energy, long-lasting burst before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, and flaring emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours.’
The first in a series of explosions was detected by a NASA telescope on March 28 in the constellation Draco.
Astronomers think the the blast occurred ‘when a star wandered too close to its galaxy’s central black hole,’ NASA said.
‘Intense tidal forces probably tore the star apart, and the infalling gas continues to stream toward the hole. According to this model, the spinning black hole formed an outflowing jet along its rotational axis. A powerful blast of X- and gamma rays is seen when the jet is pointed in our direction.’
On April 4, the Hubble telescope spotted the source of the explosion at the center of a galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away from Earth.
‘We have been eagerly awaiting the Hubble observation,’ said Neil Gehrels, the lead scientist for Swift at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
‘The fact that the explosion occurred in the center of a galaxy tells us it is most likely associated with a massive black hole. This solves a key question about the mysterious event.’
The Swift telescope has catalogued the event as gamma-ray burst (GRB) 110328A, alerting worldwide astronomers to its existence for further study.”
SFW or NSFW? Software firm hiring only naked web coders – TechSpot: “Nude House, a computer software company in Buckinghamshire, UK is looking to recruit female web coders who are prepared to work in a ‘warm and private’ naturist office environment. The company is also looking for naked sales people tempting customers to buy, as well as nudists to provide free technical support. An ad titled ‘Nude Web Coders Wanted’ has been placed on Craigslist, offering part-time or full-time positions and customers ‘who never meet you and will not know you are nude.’ “
Demand Super-Fast Broadband in the US | Techi.com: “An article in the NY Times yesterday really upset me. If you live in the US, it should upset you as well.
Hong Kong has a broadband service that costs less than $26 a month. This option for its fiber-to-the-home service offers a speed of 1,000 megabits a second. A gig. To put that into perspective, Verizon offers the ‘fastest’ broadband in the country for $145. It’s speed: 50 megabits down, 20 megabits up.
‘Why doesn’t Verizon offer gigabit service?’ Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic.net asks. ‘Because it doesn’t have to.’
We are sheep. We need an Apple 1984 moment. Someone needs to throw a sledgehammer through somebody’s screen to wake us up.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The Internet is not an option that people can boycott. We can’t turn it off. We need our broadband. As such, it will take a bold company to produce the demand. We need a company that is willing to push the limits, building the infrastructure, and supply the speeds that will force the rest of the ISPs to respond.
Will it be Google? Verizon? The US Government? There are so many possibilities out there, but nobody is stepping up yet.
If you are ‘in the know’ about a company that needs support, please tell us. We will help get the word out through social media. We will blast it out there for the masses to see. Slow Internet is no longer an option. We need someone to step up today.
Who will it be?”
US lawmakers target ‘rogue websites’ with online infringement act | The Raw Story: “Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress pledged Monday to pass legislation that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites engaged in piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would introduce a new version ‘soon’ of a bill designed to combat so-called ‘rogue websites.’
A previous bill co-sponsored by Leahy, called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 19-0 vote in November, but never made it to the Senate floor.
Leahy, speaking to reporters on Monday, said: ‘Online infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods costs American creators, producers, and businesses billions of dollars and results in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs.
‘This theft is unacceptable at any time; it is devastating in our current economic climate,’ he said.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said: ‘The success of our economy is in part tied to the success of America’s intellectual property industries.”
Document Corrupter: “We have all been in the situation where we have half-finished work due tomorrow. You can upload a unfinished word document and this tool will modify it so that it cannot be opened. You can send the corrupted file instead to buy yourself some extra time. “
: ” 10 Habits for a Stronger Heart
The smartest plan for attacking a heart attack is, of course, preventing one from ever happening. Choose three of the following strategies and make them a habit. The closer to the top, the more you reduce your risk of heart disease.
1. Convince Your Wife to Stop Smoking Nonsmoking husbands of smoking wives face a 92 percent increase in their risk of heart attack. Breathing secondhand smoke boosts bad cholesterol levels, decreases good cholesterol, and increases your blood’s tendency to clot.
2. Work Out for 30 Minutes, Four Times a Week Middle-aged men who exercise vigorously for 2 or more hours cumulatively per week have 60 percent less risk of heart attack than inactive men do.
3. Lose 10 to 20 Pounds If you’re overweight, dropping 10 to 20 pounds lowers your risk of dying from a heart attack. A 10-year study found that overweight people had heart attacks 8.2 years earlier than normal-weight victims.
4. Drink Five Glasses of Water a Day Men who drink that many 8-ounce glasses are 54 percent less likely to have a fatal heart attack than those who drink two or fewer. Researchers say the water dilutes the blood, making it less likely to clot.
5. Switch from Coffee to Tea A recent study found that people who drink three cups of tea a day have half the risk of heart attack of those who don’t drink tea at all. Potent antioxidants, called flavonoids, provide a protective effect.
6. Eat Salmon on Saturday, Tuna on Tuesday Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say that eating fish at least twice a week lowers heart-disease risk by more than 30 percent. The magic ingredient is the omega-3 fatty acids.
7. Ask Your Doctor About Vitamin E and Aspirin Men who take both cut the plaque in clogged arteries by more than 80 percent, according to a recent University of Pennsylvania study.
8. Eat a Cup of Total Corn Flakes for Breakfast This cereal contains one of the highest concentrations of folate (675 micrograms) of any cereal. Taking in that much folic acid daily cuts your risk of cardiovascular disease by 13 percent, according to researchers.
9. Count to 10 Creating a 10-second buffer before reacting to a stressful situation may be enough to cool you down. Men who respond with anger are three times more likely to have heart disease and five times more likely to have a heart attack before turning 55.
10. Eat Watermelon It contains about 40 percent more lycopene than is found in raw tomatoes, and a new study shows that your body absorbs it at higher levels due to the melon’s high water content. Half a wedge can boost heart-disease prevention by 30 percent. “
US senators: We want apps that game DUI checkpoints taken down | 9 to 5 Mac US senators: We want apps that game DUI checkpoints taken down | Apple Intelligence: “If you resort to software to figure out those speed traps, know that your senator is possibly lobbying to ban such programs from mobile bazaars forever. A group of senators took a tough stance on the matter, reports ABC News. The senators call such specialized apps ‘nothing but a public safety hazard’.
Deciding enough is enough, senators Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Frank R. Lautenberg and Tom Udall – all Democrats – in a knee jerk reaction sat down and wrote a letter to Apple, Google and Research In Motion.
They want those checkpoint-dodging programs taken down from Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Market and RIM’s App World. A mind-boggling excerpt from their letter reads:
We know that your companies share our desire to end the scourge of drunk driving and we therefore would ask you to remove these applications from your store unless they are altered to remove the DUI/DWI checkpoint functionality. Senator Schumer’s office even bothered issuing a press release specifically mentioning Trapster and PhantomALERT, iPhone apps that provide users with real-time location information on DUI checkpoints. CNN observes that RIM has apparently complied and yanked Trapster from the BlackBerry App World.
It makes sense – to some extent – that responsible drivers would steer away from gaming the system. If you use smartphone apps to dodge speed traps, this initiative concerns you directly. You know who you’re gonna call to complain? That’s right, your state’s senator!
“
Demand Super-Fast Broadband in the US | Techi.com: “An article in the NY Times yesterday really upset me. If you live in the US, it should upset you as well.
Hong Kong has a broadband service that costs less than $26 a month. This option for its fiber-to-the-home service offers a speed of 1,000 megabits a second. A gig. To put that into perspective, Verizon offers the ‘fastest’ broadband in the country for $145. It’s speed: 50 megabits down, 20 megabits up.
‘Why doesn’t Verizon offer gigabit service?’ Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic.net asks. ‘Because it doesn’t have to.’
We are sheep. We need an Apple 1984 moment. Someone needs to throw a sledgehammer through somebody’s screen to wake us up.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The Internet is not an option that people can boycott. We can’t turn it off. We need our broadband. As such, it will take a bold company to produce the demand. We need a company that is willing to push the limits, building the infrastructure, and supply the speeds that will force the rest of the ISPs to respond.
Will it be Google? Verizon? The US Government? There are so many possibilities out there, but nobody is stepping up yet.
If you are ‘in the know’ about a company that needs support, please tell us. We will help get the word out through social media. We will blast it out there for the masses to see. Slow Internet is no longer an option. We need someone to step up today.
Who will it be?”
Obama admin. proposes wiretapping media pirates | The Raw Story: “In today’s media saturated age, savvy consumers have grown mindful of what’s on. But soon, you’ll also need to be sure of where that video came from too — or Uncle Sam might decide to listen in on your phone conversations.
That’s no joke: it’s actually just one in a series of the Obama administration’s proposed reforms to intellectual property laws, which could fundamentally change how people share audio and video on the Internet.
In the most dramatic among them, the president has asked Congress for the authority to wiretap suspects in copyright cases.”
Gas rich galaxies confirm prediction of modified gravity theory: “ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2011) — Recent data for gas rich galaxies precisely match predictions of a modified theory of gravity known as MOND, according to a new analysis by University of Maryland Astronomy Professor Stacy McGaugh. This — the latest of several successful MOND predictions — raises new questions about accuracy of the reigning cosmological model of the universe, writes McGaugh in a paper to be published in March in Physical Review Letters.”
