These days, with digitized photography and photo editing, we may not think a whole lot about the process of making pictures, at least those of us with casual camera hobbies. One of the downsides of accessible technology is a kind of normalization of process. I know, since owning a digital SLR that can store hundreds […]
You’ve seen the Photoshop nightmares: the wonky fingers, the “sliced off” hips, the chiseled faces, the flawless skin. To the geeks among us, this kind of digital alteration in advertising might not be as effective, since we know how it works–and we like to laugh at it when it’s done poorly. It doesn’t take more […]
When India launched its first unmanned lunar probe last year, it hoped to make a splash. It appears to have achieved that in a very literal sense: the impact of the probe’s collision threw up soil samples that have offered the most compelling proof yet that there is indeed water on the moon. Don’t pack […]
A map of the moon from 1647 By Natania Barron Contributing Writer, [GAS] We have ever been fascinated by the moon, hanging there, silvery in the sky, so mysterious and changing. I’ve often wondered what people really thought when they saw the moon up there, before telescopes and science, and how truly amazing it must […]
I honestly can’t remember the last time I bought a periodical. I’ve never had newspapers delivered to my house. I don’t have any magazine subscriptions. I completely avoid the local news. But I am a news hound, and I check multiple sites daily, even when their format isn’t great. For me, the appeal of online […]
The Xbox 360 is many things: games console, media streamer, DVD player (and, in some cases, an expensive paperweight with a shiny red ring.) But now it’s got a new role: predicting heart problems. Researchers in Britain are using the console’s graphics chip (pictured, courtesy of Flickr user avalonstar) to power parallel processing: splitting a […]
By Sterling “Chip” Camden Contributing Writer, [GAS] ReadWriteWeb alerted us to the stealth release of Google Internet Stats, a new service from Google in which you can browse or search for trivia about the Internet and related topics – just in case you can’t waste enough time on Wikipedia or YouTube. The service is hosted […]
The British prime minister has issued an official apology for the 1950s mistreatment of Alan Turing, the man sometimes dubbed “the father of modern computer science.” It follows a petition signed by more than 30,000 people and may boost the case for Turing receiving a posthumous knighthood. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for gross indecency, […]
I don’t know whether to be scared, insulted or flattered: Apparently I’m worth $695 to the “underground community”. The figure comes from an online promotional tool by Symantec designed to value your online security. It’s based on a 10-page quiz asking general questions about what type of activity you carry out online, how much money […]
How many books would you expect to see in a New England prep school library? Until recently, the correct answer in the case of Cushing Academy was 20,000. But soon the answer will be zero. The school has decided to replace its stock of physical books (pictured) with a collection of internet-enabled screens and electronic […]