Category: Technology

Technology as it applies to me.

What The “Chinese Style” Internet Will Look Like

190607Internet
What The “Chinese Style” Internet Will Look Like:

What The “Chinese Style” Internet Will Look Like
Electronic police state: Say goodbye to high speed broadband when everything goes through a government censor
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Control freaks the world over, including most recently Tony Blair, have called for the introduction of a Chinese style Internet, where the World Wide Web is tightly regulated and free speech stifled on the whim of a government censor.

Here’s what Internet 2, the Chinese format, will look like.

Say goodbye to downloading your favorite music or videos in seconds via high-

Traffic simulation software lets officials plan evacuation strategies

Traffic simulation software lets officials plan evacuation strategies:
WOW, does this bring back some bad memories- eh Eric?-MC

The image of a backed-up highway leading away from the scene of a natural disaster may soon be history, if researcher Yi-Chang Chiu and his colleagues at the University of Arizona have their way. They’ve developed a traffic simulator that uses real-time traffic data along with detailed state and federal traffic statistics and behavior modeling to allow officials to simulate disaster evacuations in real time — or even predict the course of events as a disaster is happening. The software adjusts for such varied data as driver reactions to radio reports and wind dispersal of smoke and other pollutants; it even calculates the number of casualties and their effect. Chiu has been building the simulator since 1995, and he’s ready to start selling to state transportation and medical emergency agencies. Interestingly, Chiu says his real research focus is on calculating optimum “value-priced” toll rates — something we’re certain most state transportation departments regard as the real disaster.

Macenstein » Macenstein Archive » Martin Scorsese used iChat to direct “The Departed”

Picture 1-6
Macenstein » Macenstein Archive » Martin Scorsese used iChat to direct “The Departed”:
iChat’s video capabilities certainly are tops in their class, however who knew they’d be Hollywood quality?!

Faithful Macenstein reader Sean pointed us to a profile piece on Black Magic Design that we think both budding filmmakers and iChat users alike may find interesting.

According to the interview with visual effects supervisor Rob Legato, (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and The Aviator), Martin Scorsese actually used Apple’s iChat to direct the final “rat shot” from The Departed (which was shot in L.A.) from a Mac in New York.

iPod blamed for stealing the thunder from contemporary art

iPod blamed for stealing the thunder from contemporary art:

If you’ve been yearning for controversy, why not meet Mr. David Hockney? Commonly know as “Britain‘s best-loved living painter,” Hockney has suggested that the proliferation of the iPod has been a primary contributor to the recent “fallow period of painting.” He insists that today’s society is “all about sound,” and even mentions that people are turning off their eyes and ignoring contemporary art whilst “plugging their ears.” Put simply, he believes the modern “decline in visual awareness” rests heavily on Apple’s own cash cow, and further stirred the pot by insinuating that it led to “badly dressed people” who cared not about lines nor mass. As expected, a spokeswoman for Apple Australia refuted the claims, and while we certainly have seen no shortage of brilliant creations since the iPod explosion, there’s always two sides to the canvas.

1Passwd Update for Safari 3 Beta

21711
MUST HAVE-MC
1Passwd Update for Safari 3 Beta:
Wow those guys work fast! No sooner did Steve announce the availability of Safari 3 beta, and there’s an update for 1Passwd to work with it! Awesome response guys!
1Passwd is a fantastic utility that saves all your passwords and unifies them across your many OS X browsers. It even manages your identities (aliases?) so you can fill out webforms with a single click. Until youve used it, it might not sound like something you need – thats how I felt anyway. But after getting it through MacHeist, I couldnt deny it any longer, and I paid for the upgrade.

Amazingly clever yet scary ebay scam using javascript

Ebay Scam 1.Thumbnail
So I would assume to avoid this- shift-refresh?-MC
Amazingly clever yet scary ebay scam using javascript:
The javascript not only changes the sellers rating, it also points the sellers link to an actual seller with that rating. Amazingly, Ebay allows javascript to be embedded into templates thus allowing pages to be manipulated in this way. I have seen the offending piece of code which I was going to post but decided against for obvious reasons. I am astounded to think that there are no checks in place to prevent this from happening.

Actual Ebay Item

YouTube to test video ID with Time Warner, Disney | Technology | Reuters

Images-2
Yea lets all give up our finger prints – and a sperm sample too-MC
YouTube to test video ID with Time Warner, Disney | Technology | Reuters:

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Top online video service YouTube will soon test a new video identification technology with two of the world’s largest media companies, Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co..

The technology, developed by engineers at YouTube-owner Google Inc., will help content owners such as movie and TV studios identi

Kinyo DS-350 speakers play music off your USB stick

Kinyo DS-350 speakers play music off your USB stick:

From the “why aren’t more companies doing this?” department comes Kinyo’s DS-350 USB flash disk drive speaker, which can play MP3s and WMAs from USB flash drives, despite being in an enclosure the size of an average MP3 player dock. This particular example is a rather unimpressive one, being that the USB port’s location means your stick will jut out, the speakers are only rated at 2 Watts total output, and it runs off 4 AA batteries (yuck!). Anyway, it’s still nice to see companies come out with gadgets that give the owner a little more choice about what they can plug in: the DS-350 is shipping now for around $40, so if you’re looking to give your flash drive a tinny soundtrack, then go ahead and snap one up.

[Via Chipchick]

 

Russian ATM runs on unactivated copy of Windows

Granted, we’d be a tad more surprised about this if it wasn’t found in Russia, but this one defies logic regardless. While we’re unsure if tricksters have figured out a way to siphon unthinkable quantities of cash from this particular ATM, the owners should be ashamed of themselves for running a (presumably pirated) unactivated copy of Windows on the public banking machine. Of course, there’s quite a few workarounds for this problem if you take the time to look, but seriously, who skimps on a product activation code when running a multi-million (billion?) dollar banking operating?

[Via TheRawFeed]

 

Google named worst privacy offender in study

Picture 1-2
Google named worst privacy offender in study:
Google named worst privacy offender in study
By Nate Anderson | Published: June 11, 2007 – 05:51AM CT

Google to anonymize logs in a nod to privacy advocates
Introducing iGoogle: Google’s Personalized Homepage rebranded
A new report puts Google in last place when it comes to privacy protection. Despite recent moves to anonymize server logs and other pro-privacy gestures, Privacy International called the company “an endemic threat to privacy.”

Only Google earned the dismal “black” color bar from the group, which has just issued a report on Internet privacy that took six months to assemble (see the rankings [PDF]). The current report is preliminary; final results will be released in September.

The report rated top Internet companies on privacy issues and distilled the various results into a single color bar. Microsoft was two ranks up from Google, earning a curry-colored “serious lapses” rating. Amazon scored one level higher with its yellow “notable lapses” rank, and eB

Google Maps: Invading Your Privacy? (Not Anymore!)

535896044 5Fb7051Aee O-1
Google Maps: Invading Your Privacy? (Not Anymore!):
WebmasterWorld/PubCon Partners with SEOClass | Main | Yahoo! Slurp Now Located at crawl.yahoo.net

June 8, 2007
Google Maps: Invading Your Privacy? (Not Anymore!)
With the launch of Google Maps Street View, curious users have found some relatively inappropriate images. In a DigitalPoint Forums post, users discuss the impact of Google Maps Street View on privacy. After all, for awhile, you were able to see a woman in her underwear in this Google Maps location:

Well, not anymore, sadly. Google has since removed the image. Clicking on the link above will bring you to this page.

How To Remove Images from Google Maps Street View

It turns out that people who are concerned for their own privacy can report the particular image to Google for removal. If you click on “Street View Help,” you will be brought to a window that allows you to report the inappropriate image (bottom link).

You will be brought to a page that allows you to fill out some fields about the infringing or inappropriat

Robotic cow tongues… for lonely heifers

Robotic cow tongues… for lonely heifers:
Filed under:

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Robotic_cow_tongues_for_lonely_heifers’; Remember the good ol’ days when artists mocked religious deities and the only uprising to fear was that of the apes? Now, thanks to Doo Sung Yoo’s “Lie” exhibit, we can add disembodied, robotic cow tongues to the list of imminent revolts. “Mooo…bzzz…oooo” will be the battle cry of our future overlords. Read-on for the yukgastic video. Trust us, you’ll want to turn the sound up to 11 when they zoom in.

[Via BoingBoing]
Continue reading Robotic cow tongues… for lonely heifers

Launch: Parallels v. 3.0 now available

Launch: Parallels v. 3.0 now available:
coherence-with-parallels-1.png
We don’t often profess our love for commercial software around these parts, but Parallels Desktop for Mac – the application that runs Windows XP and Vista on your Mactel in a virtual machine – has just released version 3.0, and despite the price tag, we’re drooling over the new feature set. The NY Times David Pogue breaks down the good stuff:

You can drag and drop files from the Windows desktop to the Mac desktop, or vice versa. You can also right-click a document in either universe (a Word file, JPEG, PDF or whatever); the Open With pop-up menu, which lists programs that can open it, now lists both Mac and Windows programs. So if you’re working on the Mac, you can right-click a Word document and have it open in Word for Windows.
A Mac program called Parallels Explorer lets you manipulate the contents of your virtual Windows “hard drive” even when Parallels isn’t running.
If you sometimes use Apple’s Boot Camp program, Parallels can use the same copy of Windows, so you don’t have to install Windows twice. In 3.0, this great, space-saving feature also applies to installed copies of Windows Vista, not just XP.

You can now set up shared folders in either direction. That is, you can plunk the icon of a Macintosh-world folder right there in your Windows world, for easy opening, or vice-versa.

Shared Networking. I love this one a lot. In Parallels 3.0, Windows “hides” behind the Mac’s networking; it’s completely invisible to hacks, pings and bots on the Internet looking to infect you. Your “Windows PC” is therefore much less likely to wind up becoming a “zombie” or “bot” that does the bidding of spammers behind your back.
3-D graphics. This is a huge one for gamers. People used to say that Parallels was great — but that it couldn’t handle the 3-D games. The new version, however, works with both DirectX and OpenGL 3D, underlying technologies that drive games like World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, and Unreal Tournament. All of these are now playable on the Mac running Windows. (I haven’t tested them, though.)
Transporter. This utility can bring over your entire world — programs, documents, settings, and all — from a real Windows PC, or from an old Mac running Microsoft Virtual PC, either over the network or using a FireWire cable.
USB 2. Parallels 3.0 does much better with high-speed connections to printers, scanners, flash drives, external hard drives, BlackBerrys and other smartphones — and headsets.

Sound good? The upgrade costs existing Parallels users $40; new licenses are 80 bucks. See more on running Windows and Mac OS X side by side with Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Breaking Down the Walls Between Mac OS X and Windows [Pogue’s Posts]

Swedish piracy doc wants your footage

Swedish piracy doc wants your footage:
Cory Doctorow:

Steal This Film, a great documentary on the Swedish “pro-piracy” movement and The Pirate Bay, is in production for its second sequence, and they want clips of you (and you and you) expressing your feelings about the entertainment industry:

STEAL THIS FILM II (codename: Dissolving Fortress) is currently in production at a secret bunker location Berlin. We’re very excited about its forthcoming release. But we need you to help us complete it. Tbe task is simple: take a few minutes, turn on your webcam and microphone, and record your message to the intellectual property industries.

Express yourself to the full extent of your capabilities, using costume, mask or avatar, from Second Life or ‘real’ life, whether you’re young or old, drunk or sober — you are a Peer and we want to hear from you. Use a Camcorder, a Webcam or a Microphone — record the statement in the best quality you can. There is no minimum quality but we’d appreciate you getting us the best recordings you can. (If you don’t have software for recording video, you can use YouTube’s help — please tag it “STFII” and mail us the link: peers@stealthisfilm.com).

Link

See also: Steal This Movie: documentary on Swedish piracy movement

Beer bottle solar-powered water heater

Beer bottle solar-powered water heater:
Images Web 1001899
Here’s a beer bottle solar-powered water heater from China –

A Chinese farmer has made his own solar-powered water heater out of beer bottles and hosepipes. Chinese farmer Ma Yanjun has made his own solar-powered water heater out of beer bottles and hosepipes /Lu Feng. “I invented this for my mother. I wanted her to shower comfortably,” says Ma Yanjun, of Qiqiao village, Shaanxi province. Ma’s invention features 66 beer bottles attached to a board. The bottles are connected to each other so that water flows through them.

Ananova – Beer and sunshine land farmer in hot water – [via] Link.
Related:
Blog Solarbox 1453 Resized1
HOW TO – Almost free garage heat – just drink a lot of … – Link.
Uploadedimages Articles Issues 1979-09-01 059-070-01Pic
HOW TO – Make a homemade solar water heater – Link.
Images 2006-01 Poor-Man-Hot-Water-Heater
Poor man’s hot water heater – Link.
[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Language: Learn a language with Rosetta Stone

Language: Learn a language with Rosetta Stone:
rosetta%20stone%202.jpg

Been meaning to do this, Have it for Mac too-MC
The Cool Tools weblog sings the praises of the Rosetta Stone Language Learning system, online or desktop software for getting fluent in a foreign tongue:

The genius of the process involves using pictures to teach you how to listen, speak, read, and write, rather than teaching by translation, as virtually all other language programs do. So as you learn your new language you associate the new words, phrases, and grammatical structures directly with the pictures rather than mentally translating through your native language. Using this method, most people can use a Rosetta Stone program regardless of native tongue, cutting out a major limitation of the translation-based language programs.

Several Lifehacker readers recommended Rosetta Stone in a recent language learning call for help, too. While it sounds effective, Rosetta ain’t cheap: the CD or online access ranges from $109-$339, depending on level and delivery method (Windows only update: and Mac, CD or online subscription.)