In the following video presentation, Kevin Kelly, publisher of the Whole Earth Review and exec editor at WIRED, shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what’s coming in the next 5,000 days? Enjoy the show!
Toyota Segway-like Winglet looks like great fun
Toyota just unveiled a new series of what they call “Partner Robots” which are supposed to help people extend their range of mobility safely and effectively. Dubbed as “Winglets,” these toys for grown-ups look like segway-like devices that consist of a body that contains an electric motor, two wheels, and a couple of internal sensors (to ensure that people riding them don’t end up kissing the floor). The following video shows the “S” version in action.
Acronym of the Week – HANGUP
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Normally my eyes would totally pass by this story as the debate has been going on for ages but the acronym is worth a post in itself.
Just as the US airlines are preparing to let people finally use cellphones on planes, Congress is preparing to be the usual spoilsports and pass a law preventing people from doing just that. But to add to their fun, they need a cool sounding name for their bill. They can’t call it the “let’s stop people using their cellphones on planes so we can be all smug about it” bill. No, that would be too boring. So they decided on the “HANGUP” bill and HANGUP stands for “Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace” (rocking eh?).
So you can rest assured that your hard worked for tax dollars are going towards cool sounding acronyms! You can all sit around the dinner table and when your children say to you “Mom…Dad…..what’s Congress doing today?”, you can reply “they’re working on the HANGUP bill!”. Yeah baby!
I mean, how do they come up with names like this? Does Nancy Pelosi have a sweat shop behind that big American flag in the chamber with people feverishly working out words to go with letters that she gives them? Does she go behind the flag and shout “OK people we now have a BALONEY bill! Think of words that can go with the word BALONEY! If you don’t have anything in 30 minutes, you’re all deported back to wherever you came from! Chop! Chop!”
Seriously, HANGUP? Come on, enough with the stupid acronyms and let’s pass some serious laws for a change. We don’t need this HANGUP law – or do you really want a law banning cellphone use on planes?
Google Street View car caught driving in bus lane
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
In what is sure to be a public relations embarrassment for Google, their Street View car was stopped by British police in the centre of Bradford a few days back – for driving in the bus lane.
At first they didn’t stop and the police had to put their lights and siren on before the distinctive Google car with their logo and large rooftop mounted camera finally came to a halt in a car park.
The police officers decided in the end to take no action and sent the Google employees on their way.
The Google spokeswoman though could use some grammar training. Spot the boob-boob :
“The vehicle had driven down a bus only lane and the officer just pulled him over to see what he was doing”
“He explained that we was from Google and had permission to be in the area, and he was sent on his way“
Google has just begun filming its Street View service in Britain and it has proven to be extremely controversial. Having the cars flouting traffic rules isn’t going to endear Google to the locals either.
New British government committee may police the Internet
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
In what goes to prove that the British really do have a sense of humour, it has been recommended that a government committee be set up to protect Internet users from nasty people online such as abusive bloggers. Hey you…..f**king read this OK? I’m putting a lot of damn work into this post!! :-)
The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has just brought out their report on harmful content on the Internet and video games (start reading it and I guarantee you’ll fall asleep). One of the recommendations being put forward is that a government watchdog be set up to monitor and “police” the net against all the baddies roaming about cyberspace.
This “watchdog” would operate an online ‘code of practice’ and – here’s Joke Of The Month – order bloggers and social networking sites to take down offensive messages or photographs. As Shane Richmond says here, “good luck with that!”. You might get a responsible site such as Facebook complying with such an order, but try giving such an order to a blogger. He’ll laugh, flip the cyber-finger and put the written order on Reddit or Digg.
The House of Commons seems to think the Internet is out of control. It was only a few days ago that I wrote about the man who won 22,000 pounds at the High Court from a man who made a fake Facebook profile about him. Plus you have all the usual problems such as illegal downloading. So yes, in some ways we have problems on the net. But do we need politicians trying to solve those problems by controlling our lives online 24/7? I don’t think so. That just adds to the problems. It doesn’t solve them.
Do YOU think the Internet is getting out of control?
Electronic Nose May Replace Police Dogs
By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
The days of the police dog’s career may be numbered.
Scientists are working on a new breed of electronic noses that could replace the canine cadets, CNN reports. The high-tech sniffers would be able to find even the smallest amounts of explosive substances in places like airports and could eventually be used by the military to detect land mines. A new $1 million grant is helping power the project — which, researchers say, could change the face of scent-tracking crime forever.
“[A dog] takes a lot of training and a person has to be with them all of the time,” researcher Yushan Yan told CNN. ” A dog doesn’t work seven days a week and maybe will get into a bad mood.”
The e-nose will use a super-thin film called zeolite to pick up scents. It’s the same kind of substance used in petroleum refinement. Software will learn to recognize specific patterns to identify scents, much like an animal does.
Apparently, these types of technologies have been under development for some time — companies such as Coca-Cola even use them to do things like analyzing corn syrup — but this would be the first time, the scientists say, the electronics could come close to rivaling the age-old system of the doggie schnoz.
Tags: canine, dog, electronic nose, police dog, sniff
Solar Revolution: MIT develops new method for storing solar energy
There’s no doubt about it, solar energy is the way of the future. That’s why the think tank at MIT has put its energy into solar research, and has just unveiled a new method to store solar energy that gives further weight to a brighter solar tomorrow. MIT’s technique works by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using the sun’s energy and later recombining them into a fuel cell. Video after the jump.
Seaham Hall’s “Charybdis” vortex fountain looks amazing
Located in Seaham Hall, in Sunderland, United Kingdom, the vortex fountain works by pumping water in a circular motion up a large acrylic cylinder, and forces water to cascade down its sides. This has the effect of creating a vortex in the middle of the fountain, and since the cylinder is completely transparent, the water appears to stand still, like a solid block of water.
Pensieve: The Human Memory Assistant
By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Your own human memory could soon have a digital backup.
IBM is working on new software that collects pieces of information during your day, then uses them to help you remember things later. The project sounds like something that could have come straight from Dumbledore’s quarters — and not just because it’s named Pensieve, either.
The utility starts by picking up images, sounds, and text from your cell phone, GPS system, and other mobile devices. It then uses “associative recall,” IBM says, to understand the context and make connections between bits of related information.
“This is like having a personal assistant for your memory,” lead researcher Dr. Yaakov Navon explains. “Our daily routines are overflowing with situations where we gain new information through meetings, advertisements, conferences, events, surfing the web, or even window shopping. Instead of going home and using a general web search to find that information, Pensieve helps the brain recall those everyday things you might normally forget,” he says.
An example IBM gives, illustrated in the video below, is if you were to meet someone new at a conference. If you took a picture of him on your phone, then took a picture of his business card, Pensieve would tie the two together — and help you later recall the guy’s name, plus where and when you met him.
I don’t know about you, but this kind of technology could definitely save me from mountains of memory-related disasters. I know I’ve had plenty of forgetful faux pas — though I can’t, of course, seem to remember any of the specifics.
Edit your photos online with Yahoo’s BrowserPlus
By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Most of us have our own favourite photo editing programs – I know I do. I mostly use ThumbsPlus and sometimes also Picasa and GIMP. But I am always on the lookout for a decent online browser alternative.
Yahoo has something in beta at the moment called BrowserPlus which is pretty basic right now and is geared more towards Flickr uploading. But I have to admit it doesn’t do such a bad job with basic photo editing and it has one unique feature – it allows you to drag and drop photos onto its interface (which is handy for transferring photos off a USB stick) This alone was enough to intrigue me to download the small browser plugin and give it a test drive.