The Essentials

Vodafone pitches Comic Sans as the next Crazy Frog

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 15:02

Oooh, I love your dingbatz

The search for the next ringtone - a product that costs nothing but customers will willingly pay for - has finally borne fruit with the launch of FlipFont, a Vodafone service enabling punters to change the text font on their handset.…

Categories: The Essentials

Finnish E-Voting System Loses 2% of Votes

Slashdot - 29 October, 2008 - 14:11

kaip writes "Finland piloted a fully electronic voting system in municipal elections last weekend. Due to a usability glitch, 232 votes, or about 2% of all electronic votes were lost. The results of the election may have been affected, because the seats in municipal assemblies are often decided by margins of a few votes. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure, because the Ministry of Justice didn't see any need to implement a voter-verified paper record. The ministry was, of course, duly warned about a fully electronic voting system, but the critique was debunked as 'science fiction.' There is now discussion about re-arranging the affected elections. Thanks go to the voting system providers, Scytl and TietoEnator, for the experience."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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What's to become of Fujitsu Siemens?

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 13:02

Hopes for Happy Christmas

It could be a happy Christmas for Fujitsu Siemens Computers, with its continuing existence confirmed by that date.…

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NSA and Army On Quest For Quantum Physics Jackpot

Slashdot - 29 October, 2008 - 12:07

coondoggie sends this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "The US Army Research Office and the National Security Agency (NSA) are together looking for some answers to their quantum physics questions. ... The Army said quantum algorithms that are developed should focus on constructive solutions [PDF] for specific tasks, and on general methodologies for expressing and analyzing algorithms tailored to specific problems — though they didn't say what those specific tasks were ... 'Investigators should presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine. A necessary component of this research will be to compare the efficiency of the quantum algorithm to the best existing classical algorithm for the same problem.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NetApp's de-duping VTL arrives

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 10:32

Finally answers Data Domain, Quantum, and EMC

NetApp has added block-level de-duplication to its Virtual Tape Library (VTL) product line and claims an up to 20:1 de-duplication ratio. At last, the company has an answer to Data Domain, Quantum, and EMC.…

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The First E-President

Slashdot - 29 October, 2008 - 10:01

Szentigrade writes "Popular Science is running a letter by Daniel Engber of the online Slate Magazine in which he offers the US Presidential nominees advice on using the full potential of the Internet upon their election into office. Some examples discussed in the letter include: a project already being developed that speeds up the patent approval process, a UK site that aims to improve government-citizen interactions, and perhaps most importantly, a call for government information to be 'presented in a standardized and widely used data format, like XML, so that anyone — in or out of government — could use and reconfigure it however they pleased.' Will 2009 be the first year of the E-President?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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TO THE 33rd DEGREE.

Boing Boing - 29 October, 2008 - 08:53

NOT ONLY IS THIS MAN A BREAKDANCER, he is also a Freemason of the 33rd Degree (I don't know which Rite; it was late), and a master of both Crafts.

HIS NAME is Grand Master Priest Faustus, and I had the honor of seeing him perform at the 215 Festival on Friday at the Society of Free Letts, where he appeared as part of Patrick Borelli and Douglas Gorenstein's "Holy Headshot" project.

HE IS, frankly, the poppingest, lockingest Freemason I have ever met, and also a contemporary of many of the men who invented things like popping and locking. (He did not invent Freemasonry, however. HE IS NOT IMMORTAL. But he did have an amazing square and compass belt buckle, which started our discussion of The Craft)

IF ANYONE has any video of this event, I would be very glad to see it.

That is all.

Categories: The Essentials

SOME QUICK NOTES FROM THE UR-SKEKS-IVERSE

Boing Boing - 29 October, 2008 - 08:49

I AM IN DETROIT today, sitting in the lobby of WDET, stealing broadband from a student's room at Wayne State University. So I shall offer a few brief follow ups to your very welcome comments.

TWO COMMENTERS on my previous post on Gnomes pointed out that I might enjoy Brian Froud and Terry Jones's Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book. Indeed I might and have. But not as much as I enjoyed Brian Froud's The World of the Dark Crystal.

IT IS, OF COURSE, beautiful. But what I found inspiring, even as a child, is that someone would take The Dark Crystal so seriously, and draw and describe the Ur-Skeks-iverse in such sincere and deranged details. I think it is fair to say that everything I know about Skeksis culture derives from this book.

IN OTHER COMMENTS SECTIONS, Brermatt noted that the Battle of Galactia Ride also appeared in the FIRST "Get Smart" movie, "The Nude Bomb." It is so, and I know, because I saw this movie on TV in Australia some years ago, and I was so surprised that I practically went down the drain the wrong way.

NOW, however, it is on DVD, and insanely, i09 has the relevant clip in WIDESCREEN.

I MUST NOW drive to Ann Arbor.

That is all

Categories: The Essentials

Video for new book, Jetpack Dreams

Boing Boing - 29 October, 2008 - 08:44

Here's the video for Mac Montandon's new book about the history of jetpacks, Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was. It's a delightful and engrossing story of the quest for one of humankind's greatest technological fantasies —- to strap on a device and fly like a bird.

Jetpack Dreams | Jetpack Dreams website

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Yahoo! begs world+dog for free engineering

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 08:30

'Opens' code for social networking's dying breath

After announcing last week that it will lay off 1,400 employees, Yahoo! managers have birthed a new strategy that could recoup much of its soon-to-be-lost engineering talent: Get somebody else to do the work for free.…

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Synchronized Presidential Debating

Boing Boing - 29 October, 2008 - 08:11

If you thought the three presidential debates were similar, here's proof you were right. This video show how eerily similar the candidates' canned arguments were. Synchronized Presidential Debating (Thanks, Joe Dolce!)

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Against Proposition 8

Lessig's Blog - 29 October, 2008 - 08:03

Proposition 8 is the CA initiative to amend the CA constitution to ban same-sex marriage. This is far from my usual field, but it is an issue I feel strongly about. Click for 8 minutes of a diversion on 8.

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TomTom ships Go x40 satnav series

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 08:02

New road-savvy range released in UK

Exclusive The TomTom Go x40 Live range consisting of the Go 540, 740 and the flagship 940 - first seen at IFA in August - has been officially launched in the UK.…

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Andrew Keen predicts the end of "free labor" online

Boing Boing - 29 October, 2008 - 08:01

Andrew Keen wrote an unintentionally funny essay about how the bad economy is going to make people stop contributing content online unless they get paid for it. So how will today's brutal economic climate change the Web 2.0 "free" economy? It will result in the rise of online media businesses that reward their contributors with cash; it will mean the success of Knol over Wikipedia, Mahalo over Google, TheAtlantic.com over the HuffingtonPost.com, iTunes over MySpace, Hulu over YouTube Inc. , Playboy.com over Voyeurweb.com, TechCrunch over the blogosphere, CNN’s professional journalism over CNN’s iReporter citizen-journalism... The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren’t going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some "back end" revenue. "Free" doesn’t fill anyone’s belly; it doesn’t warm anyone up. (As Jesse Walker at Reason says, "Because that's why most people contribute to YouTube and Wikipedia. It's the reason why people post comments here at Hit & Run. 'Back end' revenue! It's the American dream!")

Keen doesn't realize the power of egoboo. Richard Eney wrote in his 1959 Fancyclopedia II that science fiction fandom "may be defined as an infinitely complex system for the production of pure egoboo." The same can be said for the Web, too.

Economy to Give Open-Source a Good Thumping

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Multiple Asteroid Belts Found Orbiting Nearby Star

Slashdot - 29 October, 2008 - 07:59

Kligat writes "Scientists have found two asteroid belts around the star Epsilon Eridani, the ninth closest star to our solar system. Epsilon Eridani also possesses an icy outer ring similar in composition to our Kuiper Belt, but with 100 times more material, and a Jovian mass planet near the edge of the innermost belt. Researchers believe that two other planets must orbit the 850 million year old star near the other two belts. Terrestrial planets are possible, but not yet indicated."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google sends 'Duke of Data Centers' to Land of Oz?

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 07:46

Down Under with Project Will Power

Google has apparently dispatched its self-styled "Duke of Data Centers" to the land of Oz, as it considers whether Australia is worthy of Project Will Power.…

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E-voting fears run high as election day looms

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 07:36

'Flipped' votes reported in three states

With just a week to go before the US presidential election, academics, politicians, and voters are voicing increased distrust of the electronic voting machines that will be used to cast ballots.…

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Intel sees little trouble in big China

The Register - 29 October, 2008 - 07:27

Defies Meltdown with $20m solar play

What does Intel's investment arm look like waving off the current economic gloom? A bit like it does when making new "cleantech" investments in China, laying down $20m funding for the solar energy kit provider, Trony Solar Holdings.…

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Sarah Palin, proud socialist

Boing Boing - 29 October, 2008 - 07:23

The best part of Hendrik Hertzberg's excellent New Yorker commentary about McCain and Palin's failed attempt to convince people that Obama is a socialist is the final paragraph containing this boast from Gov. Sarah Palin: The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist. Like, Socialism

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Researcher Warns of "Digital Dark Age"

Slashdot - 29 October, 2008 - 07:10

alphadogg writes "A assistant professor from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is sounding a warning that companies, the government and researchers need to come up with a plan for preserving our increasingly digitized data in light of shifting document management and other software platforms (think WordPerfect and floppy disks). Jerome P. McDonough, who teaches at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says there exists about 369 exabytes worth of data, and that includes some pretty hard to replace stuff, including tax files, email and photos. Open standards could play a key role in any preservation effort, he says. 'If we can't keep today's information alive for future generations, we will lose a lot of our culture,' McDonough said. Even over the course of 10 years, you can have a rapid enough evolution in the ways people store digital information and the programs they use to access it that file formats can fall out of date.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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